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Laws On Animal Research 

by — Last updated: 2014-06-05 in Drugs & Medications

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In this article, I expose the reasons on why animal research is necessary to do science and how our governments have designed laws to ensure that only researchers with the right qualifications are in charge of animal handling.

What you may not know is that animal research is strongly regulated, both locally and worldwide. It is not possible for research laboratories or companies to conduct animal testing without fulfilling certain criteria. These regulations are designed by experts in the area and are enforced by local governments.

Strict regulations to ensure humane treatment

For instance, in the U.K., researchers that need to handle animals for experimentation are required to have a license. This license is approved after a thorough analysis of the research project, which should include the reasons to use an animal model and not a bacterial or cellular model, for example, the number of animals that are necessary for the study and the impact of the study.

Researchers also have to take an exam on how to handle the animal that they will be working with and the techniques that will be used during the development of the research project.

Once licenses are approved, the scientific team is obliged to report periodically their achievements to the governmental institution in charge of these matters. 

Animal research laws take into account the type of animals that can be used for experimentation, as well as the facilities were they should be kept and the experimental techniques that can be performed on them, in order to secure a humane treatment and avoid causing unnecessary suffering. 

The three R's campaign

These laws certainly challenge researchers' skills, because they need to design their experiments in such an efficient way that the least number of animals are used and still, results obtained can be significant for the study that is being performed.  

Sometimes, scientists are portrayed as heartless and without a bit of care regarding animals that are used for experimentation, but this is not the case. Scientists are always trying to develop new models that can if not replace, at least avoid as much as possible the use of animals for experimentation. 

There is currently a campaign known as the the 3 R’s which promotes the replacement of animals with non-living models, the reduction in the use of animals and the refinement of animal experimentation practices, whenever it is feasible.

See Also: Green Glowing Cats Might Help In Hiv Research

So, as you can see, animal research ethics go beyond what a video can portray. Without animal experimentation we would not have all the medicines and treatments that we have nowadays for even the simplest disease. We would be dying of treatable illnesses and epidemics would be part of our daily life. Hopefully, animal experimentation will slowly become more and more unnecessary with time, but meanwhile, be sure that both scientists and governments do everything that is in their hands to respect animal rights and give them a humane treatment.  

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