How Many Animals Are Used For Testing

Animals are used for a variety of purposes in the United States—for food and other products; in sports and entertainment; for companionship; for the production of enzymes, hormones, and other biological products; and in inquiry, testing, and education. The largest use of animals is in food and cobweb production, accounting for over 5 billion vertebrates each year (U.S. Section of Agriculture, 1985). An estimated 110 meg dogs and cats are household pets in the United states of america. Between 17 1000000 and 22 meg animals are estimated to be used annually in the The states in enquiry, education, and testing. Well-nigh 85 per centum of these are rats and mice, and less than 2 percentage are cats, dogs, and nonhuman primates (Office of Applied science Assessment, 1986).

Animals are used in enquiry to improve the health and welfare of humans and animals and to gain basic knowledge that cannot be gained in other ways. Research conducted on animals varies widely in its impact on the animal subjects themselves. One field of behavioral research consists of observations of animals living in colonies that simulate their natural environments only with acceptable nutrient supplies and no predators. In some research projects, animals are subjected to experimental procedures and then receive supportive care, considering their long-term survival and the validation of methods are the goals of handling (examples include the development of organ transplantation and chronic toxicology). Some research animals are subjected to toxic substances and painful procedures until they are disabled or dice, as when determining the lethal dose of radiation used in cancer therapy. Some are killed to obtain an essential organ, such as the liver, to exist used in further studies. Others are anesthetized, subjected to an experimental procedure, and killed without regaining consciousness.

Not merely is at that place considerable variation in how animals are used, just there is variation in how many and what types of animals are used in experiments.

Numbers of Animals Used

In 1952 the National Enquiry Council established the Establish for Laboratory Animal Resource (ILAR) to serve as a coordinating agency and an data resource on the use of laboratory animals. In 1962, 1968, and 1978, ILAR conducted major surveys of laboratory animal facilities and resources, with the results of the 1978 survey being published by the U.S. Section of Health and Human Services (National Research Council, 1980). The 1968 and 1978 ILAR surveys included most of the entities that employ animals in biomedical research, including nonprofit, commercial, military, and federal organizations. ILAR is currently planning a 4th survey.

The Animal and Constitute Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as well collects data on the extent of animal utilise. Each twelvemonth APHIS prepares an Animal Welfare Enforcement Report, which summarizes the annual reports filed with APHIS by registered research facilities that use animals in research (U.Due south. Section of Agriculture, 1972–1987). All registered inquiry facilities are required to submit these reports. Institutions are not required to written report on their use of rats, mice, birds, and domestic subcontract animals used for inquiry, simply the almanac written report form has infinite for voluntary reporting on the use of rats and mice.

Table 1 summarizes data from the ILAR and APHIS surveys and from estimates prepared by Health Designs, Inc., for the Function of Technology Assessment (1986). As demonstrated past the table, data from various sources show a lack of consistency. It should be noted that a considerable subtract was observed betwixt 1967 and 1978 in the numbers of animals used as measured by ILAR. Recent annual reports from APHIS, even so, take shown that the full number of animals used in experimentation (excluding rats, mice, birds, and wild animals) increased from 1,571,693 in 1983 to i,633,933 in 1986 (U.Due south. Department of Agronomics, 1972–1987). The Office of Technology Assessment (1986), in evaluating all the data, has concluded that the available data are besides imprecise to allow whatever conclusions to be made regarding recent trends in overall animal use. The ILAR survey being planned will provide more current information on animal use.

TABLE i

Various Estimates of the Number of Animals Used in the United States.

Use of Animals in Research by the Federal Government

The federal government is a major user of research animals. Specifically, the following departments and agencies use animals for intramural enquiry and testing (Office of Engineering science Cess, 1986).

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts inquiry with animals to improve creature health and the quality of creature products, such as nutrient and fiber.

• The U.S. Department of Defense conducts experimental research in a wide diversity of areas, with animals being used by the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the Defense Nuclear Agency, and the Military Institute of Pathology.

• The U.Southward. Department of Energy conducts enquiry on the health and environmental furnishings of energy technologies and programs. Well-nigh of this inquiry takes place at the privately managed national laboratories—such every bit Brookhaven National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Pacific Northwest Laboratories—and through contracts and grants to scientists employed at universities and other research facilities.

• The U.Southward. Section of Health and Human Services carries out intramural brute enquiry or testing inside iv of its components: the National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which is part of the Booze, Drug Corruption, and Mental Health Administration (ADAMHA); and the National Institute for Occupational Condom and Health (NIOSH), which is part of the Centers for Affliction Control. NIH is the largest of these four components and uses more animals than any other federal department or agency.

• The U.S. Department of the Interior, in cooperation with state and individual organizations, conducts research and education programs to improve fish and wild fauna resources direction.

• The U.S. Department of Transportation conducts research on transportation rubber using animals under the authority of the Hazardous Transportation Act of 1974 and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Condom Deed of 1966.

• The Consumer Production Rubber Committee (CPSC) conducts tests to determine the toxic potential of consumer products.

• The Environmental Protection Bureau (EPA) performs inquiry involving animals under the statutory and regulatory potency of the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Federal. Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

• The National Helmsmanship and Space Administration (NASA) conducts inquiry with animals to larn knowledge that can be used to protect the wellness of astronauts, both during their missions in space and later on their return to earth.

• The Veterans Administration (VA) uses animals in its research and evolution divisions and in its educational activity programs.

The Office of Technology Assessment (1986) has estimated that the full federal use of animals in 1983 was 1.6 million, with about 90 percent of these animals existence rats and mice.

Use of Animals in Education

The number of animals used in education is unknown, only virtually observers retrieve that it is relatively small. For example, an estimated 53,000 animals are used annually for teaching in medical and veterinary schools (Office of Technology Assessment, 1986). However, animal use in high schools and colleges might exist most people's only contact with laboratory animals, making it an important determinant of how the public feels most such use. This topic is outside the charge of the committee, but the contempo report by the Part of Engineering science Cess (1986) examines the issue in some detail.

Use of Animals in Testing

Animals are used extensively to test the safety and efficacy of compounds produced by the chemical, corrective, and drug industries. The use of and then many animals, particularly rats and mice, in testing cannot be ignored even though the commission was charged primarily with looking at the use of animals in research. Government regulatory agencies, such equally FDA, EPA, CPSC, and the Occupational Prophylactic and Health Administration (OSHA), oftentimes explicitly crave the use of animals in testing. A listing of some commonly used tests follows (Office of Applied science Assessment, 1986). Descriptions of possible alternative methods can be constitute in Chapter 4.

• Acute toxicity tests consist of unmarried doses at concentrations high enough to produce toxic effects or expiry. They are often used to screen substances for relative toxicity. The LD₅₀, which is the dose of a test substance at which half the test animals tin can be expected to die, is ane such test.

• Eye and skin irritation tests, which usually consist of a single exposure, are generally used to develop warnings for treatment and to predict the toxicity of adventitious exposure. The near common method used to exam eye irritation is the Draize test, in which a test substance is applied to one centre of an adult rabbit, with the untreated eye serving as a control (Draize et al., 1944).

• Repeated-dose chronic toxicity tests entail repeated exposures to substances for periods of two weeks to more than a year to make up one's mind the possible effects of long-term exposure. Rats are most commonly used for these tests.

• Carcinogenicity tests involve repeated exposures to substances for well-nigh of an animal'due south lifespan to detect possible human carcinogens.

• Developmental and reproductive toxicity tests consist of a diversity of procedures to determine the potential of foreign substances to cause infertility, miscarriages, and birth defects. Rats and rabbits are the most commonly used animal subjects.

• Neurotoxicity tests use a variety of doses and exposures to determine toxic effects on the nervous system. Toxic end points include behavioral changes, lack of coordination, motor disorders, and learning disabilities in animals.

• Mutagenicity tests include a variety of methods for determining whether genetic cloth of germ or somatic cells has been inverse.

• Biological screening tests investigate the biological activeness of organic compounds. Animals may exist used in these tests depending on the type of biological activity existence investigated.

Virtually of the higher up-mentioned tests require the utilize of big numbers of animals. However, as mentioned before, the number of animals used in testing is not known. Most testing is thought to be conducted in individual commercial establishments that use primarily rats and mice, which under electric current regulations are not subject area to the reporting requirements of the Animal Welfare Deed. A recent estimate of the full number of animals used in testing was ''several'' million (Role of Technology Assessment, 1986). Some other study (Theta Corporation, 1986) estimated that the utilise of animals in testing and industrial inquiry is considerably greater than that, with organizations outside of authorities and academia accounting for over 75 per centum of the estimated 22 million laboratory animals used annually. Of these animals, rodents by far are used in the greatest numbers.

New Technologies and Time to come Laboratory Use of Animals

The new and apace expanding field of biotechnology will accept an impact on the species and numbers of laboratory animals used, simply it is likewise early on to predict precisely its ultimate furnishings. In some cases, the number of animals used might exist reduced as biotechnology provides new testing methods adequate to governmental regulatory regime. In other cases, biotechnology might cause a need for more animals also as shifts in the relative numbers of diverse species of animals used. Now, the biotechnology manufacture in the Us purchases an estimated eleven percentage of all laboratory rodents sold, about 5 percent of the swine, and nigh 2 percent of the rabbits and dogs, simply few primates or cats (Theta Corporation, 1986).

Several effects of biotechnology tin can already be seen. Rabies virus is widely distributed in nature. It was initially studied by infecting live laboratory animals with the virus, which led to vaccines produced using live animals. Recently, new diagnostic tests take been developed that use monoclonal antibodies produced by prison cell cultures, and vaccines are existence produced with recombinant Dna engineering (Freiherr, 1986). These changes accept greatly reduced the utilize of animals for this purpose.

Proteins such as growth hormone and insulin tin now be made using bioengineering techniques. Although this method of production volition not eliminate the utilize of animals, information technology may reduce the number used per product, considering rubber tests can then be performed with larger batches of a uniform product.

The increasing sophistication in determining molecular construction and using it to predict biochemical function may reduce the use of animals. Scientists tin utilise advances in technology to determine the active sites of molecules and even the attachment sites of viruses.

Such information may permit drug synthesis to proceed in a more directed fashion. New compounds developed in this manner will even so require prophylactic and efficacy testing in animals. Animals volition also still exist needed for the validation of predicted results.

The numbers of particular animals used could change. For case, more mice might be used, because transgenic mice produced by the microinjection of DNA into fertilized mouse eggs constitute a powerful system for the study of specific genes (Bieberich and Scangos, 1986).

Summary

No comprehensive data on the employ of animals for inquiry, testing, and education in the private sector are available, and trends in this employ are hard to guess. Federal in-house use amounts to about 1.6 million animals, or less than x percent of the estimated 17 one thousand thousand to 22 million animals used annually for inquiry, education, and testing in the United States. A uniform system of reporting, while costly, would help to determine more accurately the numbers of animals used in research, which would make information technology possible to appraise the touch on of policy on trends in animate being employ. Animals are used extensively in testing the safety and efficacy of compounds produced past the chemical, cosmetic, and drug industries. Commonly used tests include those for acute toxicity, centre and skin irritation, repeated-dose chronic toxicity, carcinogenicity, developmental and reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, mutagenicity, and biological screening. Future technologies might afford means of reducing animal use, or they might atomic number 82 to a demand for more animals or to shifts in the relative numbers of different species used.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218261/

Posted by: goodwinengifiricent.blogspot.com

Share this post