Should Animals Be Used For Research?

Introduction

The animal experimentation are key factors in developing biomedical science in general and in particular, in the projects of research and in the testing and diagnostic controls product drug. Evidence of this is that countries have made great progress in controlling the diseases humans and animals are those who have dedicated resources and time to development of the Science of Laboratory Animals. To achieve ideal performance and ensure consistent results should take into account the requirements of handling, power, environmental factors and comfort of a kind used from the knowledge and application of the principles of bioethics. But the question that arises is whether it is ethical to research on animals or not?

Discussion

It has been described that there are more than 1,200,000 animal species, but 97% of those used in biological experimentation belong to 9 categories: rat, mouse, guinea pig, rabbit, hamster, dog, cat, chicken and monkey. Other, less common, are fish, snakes, owls, bats, sheep, doves, armadillos, etc. (www.peta.org). It is estimated that the number of animals used annually for biomedical purposes, ranges between 1 000 000 in India and 6 million in Japan, with an intermediate figure of 2 000 000 in Canada (Rowan, Loew & Weer, 26-29).

The Science of Animal Laboratory emerges as an aid to community scientific to improve all aspects of animal experimentation. As early as 1959, British scientists Russell and RL Burch WM wrote in his Principles of Technical Experimentation Humanitarian scientific excellence and humane use of laboratory animals were strongly linked. In that treaty first described the now well-known motto of the three “R” in the use of experimental animals: reduction, refinement and replacement (Carbone, 22-33).

The search for methods alternative to replace animals in testing is a responsibility and should be a concern of all researchers, refinement of the experiments and the reduction in the number of animals used are fundamental aspects to this new branch of science biology.

The refinement involves mainly the normalization parameters according to international definition genetics and the status of animals used microbiological (defined animals) and the quality of the environment which are raised before and during experimentation. Progress in the refinement of the experiments carried, by themselves, to the reduction in the number of animals used.

As referred Beauchamp (2001), an analysis of these aspects in the literature revealed scientific inefficient use of animals due to poor design experimental, to inappropriate statistical analysis of results, or both. Note that the number of animals used should be the minimum necessary to be able to evaluate the hypothesis and provide statistically useful. Given the above we can define the Laboratory Animal Science is concerned, simultaneously, to improve scientific research and to ensure animal welfare.

Concern for animal welfare in general, and the animals used in research and teaching in particular, emerged from the civil society and not the investigators. Since 1875 there was concern not to abuse or cruelty to animals, so that in that year the British Parliament published “Animal Cruelty Act”, a document that regulates the ...