Vivisection

I

Introduction

Vivisection, the dissection or other use of living animals in scientific research. Biomedical research, in general terms, can be defined as the study of living organisms and their interactions to: (1) improve medical, veterinary, or biological understanding, in order to enhance or maintain the well-being of human beings, animals, or the environment; (2) test the safety of chemicals or other products, to safeguard the welfare of human beings, animals, and the environment; and (3) improve fundamental biological knowledge.

Most animals are used in “applied” biomedical research, which aims to solve practical problems, and this work includes: developing and selecting new medical and veterinary pharmaceuticals; toxicity (poisons) testing; developing, testing, and improving surgical materials and procedures; the study of experimental diseases and pathology; development and production of antisera and vaccines; development of medical and veterinary diagnostic techniques; and education and training.

Animals are used generally as “models” for human beings but they are also used in research to improve the health of other animals. The procedures used are either carried out wholly under anaesthesia, without anaesthesia, or with initial anaesthesia followed by recovery and continued observation. The use of anaesthesia is dependent on the type of investigation.

Biomedical research that involves the use of whole animals, in vivo, is more prevalent than in vitro research, which uses either isolated organs, tissues, cells (grown on culture media), or subcellular constituents. This is because in vitro research can be limiting as it does not take into account the effects of other tissues and organs of a living organism.

Several animal rights groups (“antivivisectionists”) are opposed to the use of animals in this context. They believe that animals have the same rights as human beings and they promote the use of equally valid alternatives to using animals; in addition, they object strongly to the testing of products that may contain unnecessary chemicals.

II

Historical Perspective

The use of animals in scientific research dates back to literature from 500 bc, with research by Alcmaeon of Croton on optic nerve function. Techniques for dissecting living animals were improved by Galen of Pergamum and his experiments were later involved in the 16th-century discovery of blood circulation by William Harvey and the heart's pumping action for blood circulation. Up until the 18th century humans were envisaged as the only alternative to using animals for scientific research, and it was advocated that criminals in particular should be the subjects of vivisection. By the 19th century, however, even the use of dead bodies was regulated.

The focus on animal experimentation increased and its use was defended by Claude Bernard and other leading scientists. Louis Pasteur, who pioneered the field of infectious diseases, developed antibiotics with the use of animal experiments. Advocates of nonanimal research, such as Lawson Tait, claimed that the diseases of animals were different from those of human beings and concluded that vivisection was worthless. In 1959 Burch and Russell formed the concept of humane research to help develop experiments that utilized animal-free techniques.

III

Legislation

The first British legislation dealing with animal experiments and laboratory conditions was the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876, which covered experiments “calculated to inflict pain”. This legislation was superseded by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 1986, which was consistent with the minimum standards set for animal protection in Europe.

For other countries, legal provisions governing the use of animals for research vary in the level of protection given to animals. In response to these worldwide variations, the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences published, in 1985, a set of International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals, which were intended to provide a “conceptual and ethical framework” for countries with no legislation.

In the United States, the Animal Welfare Act operates as the main federal law relating to laboratory animals but state jurisdictions regulate research specifically; attempts, in 1990, to incorporate new amendments proved problematic.

The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 1986 controls work in Britain involving the use of “regulated procedures” on “protected animals”. Researchers must gain acceptance from an establishment licensed by the Home Office to perform regulated procedures. These establishments include: laboratories in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry; science departments in universities and medical, dental, and veterinary schools; government departments; research institutes; specific departments in hospitals; and public health laboratories.

Each researcher must obtain a personal licence to certify competence to perform regulated procedures on a programme of work that has Home Office project licence approval. Before the project licence is granted, satisfactory scientific justification has to be outlined in a proposal detailing the purpose, background, and proposed procedures. Home Office Inspectors visit establishments to verify that researchers have complied with the conditions under which licences and certificates were granted.

IV

Animals Used

Worldwide, rodents are used mainly in biomedical research; the use of other mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish is small in comparison. The species selected for use in an experiment is dependent on the investigation and the amount of harm the animal may experience. The recognition of adverse effects in different species is subjective. Observations on animal behaviour linked to brain development studies have been used as a form of assessing harm experienced by animals, but exceptions do arise, for example, in the octopus, which is an invertebrate that has been shown to respond to adverse stimuli.

The 1986 European Community Directive states that specific animals should be purpose-bred (specific countries have chosen to be exempt) as they will have a controlled genetic makeup, a known record of disease, and they will be adapted to human contact and the animal husbandry systems. The EC Directive also protects the use of wild-caught animals for animal experimentation because of the adverse effects of entrapment, quarantine, and adaptation to captivity. A conservation status for wild animals exists to prevent population reduction and species extinction.

Purpose-bred strains are the products of many generations of controlled selective breeding; specific strains possess distinctive characteristics, such as animals with nonhereditary abnormalities or pathologies, which makes them useful as models in certain areas of biomedical research. Transgenic animals are bred for a specific use and have an altered genetic makeup that is produced by directly transferring genetic material (DNA) from one animal to another. Transgenic technology can rapidly alter certain desired characteristics in one generation, for example, the “oncomouse”, developed by Harvard University, has been bred to contain human cancer genes and develop tumours after birth. Transgenesis raises several ethical issues, such as gene transfer between species, genetic manipulation of eggs and sperm, and the environmental risk of releasing animals carrying manipulated genetic material.

The use of stray cats and dogs in research is forbidden in most of Europe. In some countries, however, there are so many stray animals that their use in research has been advocated. It has been suggested that stray animals would suffer more than purpose-bred animals, while public opinion has focused on the possibility that lost pets may end up in laboratories.

Since 1976, the number of animals used for biomedical research has been in decline—a trend accelerated by the 1986 Act. This fall may reflect the rise in interest of molecular biology and the use of more in vitro methods and computer models. The increased costs of maintaining animals, the rise in public interest in vivisection issues, and the powerful lobbies against some forms of animal use, such as cosmetics testing, may also have influenced the decline.