To the Editor:

The Editorial in the May issue of Nature Genetics (38, 497–498; 2006) reported on a number of the conclusions and recommendations in our report entitled, 'The Ethics of Research Involving Animals' (http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/). The article was an excellent summary of the ethical issues most relevant to geneticists.

The article included the following paragraph: “Its [the Report's] conclusions are designed to reinforce the UK Home Office regulations for animal experimentation, which in 1959 introduced the '3R' goals—refinement, reduction and replacement—ultimately treating animal experimentation as a problem requiring regulatory reduction.”

We would like to point out that the Report's conclusions were not intended to reinforce the UK Home Office regulations for animal experimentation. It did conclude, however, that the concept of the 'Three Rs' and the moral position underlying current UK legislation could be accepted, or at least tolerated by all those holding reasonable views.

In addition, the Three Rs were first described by Russell and Burch in 1959 (ref. 1). The principle of the Three Rs became enshrined in UK legislation with the introduction of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act in 1986.