A s a preface to my presentation, I want to express how much I am indebted to NIH for the beginning of my career after graduation from veterinary school. I feel like being on the campus here really imprinted on my DNA an appreciation for research and the use of animals in re search for a very worthy purpose-the evaluation of polio myelitis vaccine, and my fi rst scientific publication (van Hoosier et al. 1961). I also want to express appreciation for the support that NIH has given over the years to various ani mal resource programs, various comparative medicine train ing programs, the primate centers, and various grants for research in the laboratory animal field that helped us to un derstand more about the diseases of laboratory animals that complicated their use in biomedical research.An alternative title for my presentation could be "Flash back." My assignment is to go back in time approximately 25 or 30 years. There have been a lot of changes since 1985, so one should not assume that the way it was done back then is the way it's being done today.
Challenges in 1985The concerns we had at that time included surgery, analge sia, and intercurrent infections. For many animals barbitu rates were the primary anesthetic available. Other chemicals included chloral hydrate in rats for anesthesia and ether for anesthesia in mice, which created other problems in the lab oratory, and infections in laboratory animals, some of which were transmissible to humans.At the first meeting of the committee that revised the Guide in 1985, Steve Pakes, who chaired the committee, shared with us a conversation he had with Al Jonas, who was from Yale. Al had participated in an AAALAC site visit at a veterinary school and was appalled at the course description and practices for teaching surgery in veterinary schools back in that era. The veterinary student surgery class used dogs and performed multiple procedures, including skin incisions with different closures, abdominal explorations, intestinal anastomoses, enucleations, and there could have been other procedures before euthanasia, depending on the circum stances and the course description. The PHS Policy states that exceptions should not be made for purposes of teaching or demonstration.The committee was considering allowing only one major surgical procedure on an animal if the procedure involved an unrelated project. In association with this proposal, one challenge was establishing criteria for the classifi cation of surgery as major or minor. Before drafting the text for this section, I went to our university hospital and met with sev eral surgeons to learn what they did on an outpatient basis as opposed to surgery requiring overnight accommodations. I tried to extrapolate from that to what we might classify as minor procedures. The committee edited and approved the section-the first statement on the subject to appear in the Guide.Regarding analgesia for the alleviation of pain, only two or three drugs were available, depending on the species. We had opioids and nonsteroidal anti-i...
