NEW LAB ANIMAL CARE GUIDE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

The 1996 updated edition of
the Guide for the Care and Use of
Laboratory Animals, published in midsummer
by the National Research
Council’s Institute of Laboratory
Animal Resources, is under fire from
researchers for recommending group
housing for social animals such as dogs
and primates, and flat rather than wirefloored
cages for rodents. Though having
no regulatory force, the Guide i s
often used as the basis for federal regulation
of laboratories. If Guide recommendations
are incorporated into future
amendments to the Animal Welfare Act,
many labs will have to renovate.

But Humane Society of the
U.S. vice president for animal research
issues Martin Stephens objects that the
Guide sets “performance standards,”
based on perceptions of animal behavior,
rather than specific “engineering
standards” spelling out exactly what
labs should and shouldn’t do.
“The goals specified in performance
standards are ill-defined and
amorphous,” Stephens told N e w
Scientist writer Robert Finn. Stevens
was also critical of the choice of retired
schoolteacher Jo Ann D. Steggerda, a
member of the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign animal care and
use committee, to represent animal
protection. “The whole point of having
an outside member,” Stephens said,
“was to have someone we could trust as
a watchdog. We have no basis to say
one way or another whether Steggerda
acted in that capacity. However,
there’s some basis for concern, given
that she has no history of involvement in
animal protection.”
Returned Steggerda, “If my
slot had been filled by a known animal
rightist, I’m not sure that the great body
of the public, who are not declared animal
rightists, would have been represented
at all. I tried to represent all
views.”