Why is the Committee so concerned about “alternatives to painful procedures”?
With the passage of the Improved Standards for Laboratory Animals Act in 1985, Congress expressed a clear concern about the use of animals in painful procedures. According to the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) regulations: …the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) shall determine that the principal investigator has considered alternatives to procedures that may cause more than slight pain or distress to the animals, and has provided a written narrative of the methods and sources used to determine that alternatives were not available. To assist IACUCs and investigators in complying with this portion of the law, Congress established the Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC) at the National Agriculture Library (NAL) which currently houses one of the largest collections of veterinary literature in the world and is developing one of the most comprehensive collections of laboratory animal literature. AWIC can be an especially important information resource for investigators who
