Estimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species

Abstract Alone among Western nations, the United States has a two-tier system for welfare protections for vertebrate animals in research. Because its Animal Welfare Act (AWA) excludes laboratory rats and mice (RM), government veterinarians do not inspect RM laboratories and RM numbers are only parti...

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Autor principal:	Larry Carbone
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/979f339689d44433b16a622eddce8478
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:979f339689d44433b16a622eddce84782021-12-02T15:23:06ZEstimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species10.1038/s41598-020-79961-02045-2322https://doaj.org/article/979f339689d44433b16a622eddce84782021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79961-0https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Alone among Western nations, the United States has a two-tier system for welfare protections for vertebrate animals in research. Because its Animal Welfare Act (AWA) excludes laboratory rats and mice (RM), government veterinarians do not inspect RM laboratories and RM numbers are only partially reported to government agencies1. Without transparent statistics, it is impossible to track efforts to reduce or replace these sentient animals’ use or to project government resources needed if AWA coverage were expanded to include them. I obtained annual RM usage data from 16 large American institutions and compared RM numbers to institutions’ legally-required reports of their AWA-covered mammals. RM comprised approximately 99.3% of mammals at these representative institutions. Extrapolating from 780,070 AWA-covered mammals in 2017–18, I estimate that 111.5 million rats and mice were used per year in this period. If the same proportion of RM undergo painful procedures as are publicly reported for AWA-covered animals, then some 44.5 million mice and rats underwent potentially painful experiments. These data inform the questions of whether the AWA needs an update to cover RM, or whether the NIH should increase transparency of funded animal research. These figures can benchmark progress in reducing animal numbers in general and more specifically, in painful experiments. This estimate is higher than any others available, reflecting the challenges of obtaining statistics without consistent and transparent institutional reports.Larry CarboneNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-6 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Larry Carbone Estimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species
description	Abstract Alone among Western nations, the United States has a two-tier system for welfare protections for vertebrate animals in research. Because its Animal Welfare Act (AWA) excludes laboratory rats and mice (RM), government veterinarians do not inspect RM laboratories and RM numbers are only partially reported to government agencies1. Without transparent statistics, it is impossible to track efforts to reduce or replace these sentient animals’ use or to project government resources needed if AWA coverage were expanded to include them. I obtained annual RM usage data from 16 large American institutions and compared RM numbers to institutions’ legally-required reports of their AWA-covered mammals. RM comprised approximately 99.3% of mammals at these representative institutions. Extrapolating from 780,070 AWA-covered mammals in 2017–18, I estimate that 111.5 million rats and mice were used per year in this period. If the same proportion of RM undergo painful procedures as are publicly reported for AWA-covered animals, then some 44.5 million mice and rats underwent potentially painful experiments. These data inform the questions of whether the AWA needs an update to cover RM, or whether the NIH should increase transparency of funded animal research. These figures can benchmark progress in reducing animal numbers in general and more specifically, in painful experiments. This estimate is higher than any others available, reflecting the challenges of obtaining statistics without consistent and transparent institutional reports.
format	article
author	Larry Carbone
author_facet	Larry Carbone
author_sort	Larry Carbone
title	Estimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species
title_short	Estimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species
title_full	Estimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species
title_fullStr	Estimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species
title_full_unstemmed	Estimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species
title_sort	estimating mouse and rat use in american laboratories by extrapolation from animal welfare act-regulated species
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/979f339689d44433b16a622eddce8478
work_keys_str_mv	AT larrycarbone estimatingmouseandratuseinamericanlaboratoriesbyextrapolationfromanimalwelfareactregulatedspecies
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Estimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species

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