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  • Protocol Review
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Response to Protocol Review Scenario: When strain matters

Lab Animal volume 43, pages 14–15 (2014)Cite this article

Great Eastern's IACUC administrator is clearly a professional interested in assisting the IACUC in fulfilling its regulatory mandates related to the use of animals at the institution. However, her stated reason for suggesting that the IACUC should change the institution's protocol form is not specifically supported by the federal regulations surrounding the use of animals in research and teaching. It is this lack of specificity in the regulations that creates the disagreement described in the scenario.

The Animal Welfare Act regulations1 (AWARs) require animal use proposals to include “a rationale for involving animals and for the appropriateness of the species and numbers of animals to be used.” The Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals2 requires institutions to comply with the AWARs, as applicable, and requires compliance with the US Government Principles for the Utilization and Care of Vertebrate Animals Used in Testing, Research, and Training3; Principle III states: “The animals selected for a procedure should be of an appropriate species... to obtain valid results.” Likewise, the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals4 indicates that investigators should provide and IACUCs should consider in their review a “justification of the species and number of animals proposed.”

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References

  1. Animal Welfare Act and Regulations. 9 CFR, Chapter 1, Subchapter A.

  2. Public Health Service. Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (US Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, 1986; amended 2002).

  3. Public Health Service. US Government Principles for the Utilization and Care of Vertebrate Animals Used in Testing, Research, and Training (US Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, 2002).

  4. Institute for Laboratory Animal Research. Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals 8th edn. (National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Moseley is Senior IACUC Coordinator and Kim is IACUC Coordinator in the Research Integrity and Compliance Review Office at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO.,

    Bill Moseley &  Elaine Kim

Authors
  1. Bill Moseley
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  2. Elaine Kim
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Moseley, B., Kim, E. Response to Protocol Review Scenario: When strain matters. Lab Anim 43, 14–15 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.444

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