Reporting the Implementation of the Three Rs in European Primate and Mouse Research Papers: Are We Making Progress?

Abstract

It is now more than 20 years since both Council of Europe Convention ETS123 and EU Directive 86/609?EEC were introduced, to promote the implementation of the Three Rs in animal experimentation and to provide guidance on animal housing and care. It might therefore be expected that reports of the implementation of the Three Rs in animal research papers would have increased during this period. In order to test this hypothesis, a literature survey of animal-based research was conducted. A randomly-selected sample from 16 high-profile medical journals, of original research papers arising from European institutions that featured experiments which involved either mice or primates, were identified for the years 1986 and 2006 (Total sample = 250 papers). Each paper was scored out of 10 for the incidence of reporting on the implementation of Three Rs-related factors corresponding to Replacement (justification of non-use of non-animal methods), Reduction (statistical analysis of the number of animals needed) and Refinement (housing aspects, i.e. increased cage size, social housing, enrichment of cage environment and food; and procedural aspects, i.e. the use of anaesthesia, analgesia, humane endpoints, and training for procedures with positive reinforcement). There was no significant increase in overall reporting score over time, for either mouse or primate research. By 2006, mouse research papers scored an average of 0 out of a possible 10, and primate research papers scored an average of 1.5. This review provides systematic evidence that animal research is still not properly reported, and supports the call within the scientific community for action to be taken by journals to update their policies.

Prolonged Pain Research in Mice: Trends in Reference to the 3Rs

“…A small percentage of authors did mention efforts to minimize the number of animals and/or pain caused to animals in their studies. Our findings reflect a recent analysis of 250 research papers reporting experiments on primates and mice which found that reporting using the 3Rs is very low and not increasing (Taylor, 2011). Most often, authors referred to efforts to abide by a set of guidelines, such as those of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP, 2012), or approval by the researchers' institutional animal use committees.…”

Pain and Laboratory Animals: Publication Practices for Better Data Reproducibility and Better Animal Welfare

“…Some focus on animal welfare refinements and pain management, with little overt discussion of best practices for reliable, reproducible data. [ 1 , 5 – 13 ] Others have critiqued the animal research literature for concerns with transparency, data-quality and reproducibility, highlighting sources of bias that have also plagued human subjects research, such as randomization, robust statistics, and blinding of data-collectors to group allocations. [ 9 , 14 – 29 ] Recent guidelines for publishing animal studies, most notably from the UK National Centre for the 3Rs and the United States National Academies of Science, suggest standards for fuller and more consistent reporting of animal experimental methods in scientific articles, but with very little attention to animal pain management as a methodological practice of concern.…”

Pain in Laboratory Animals: The Ethical and Regulatory Imperatives

“…That may one day be true, but for now it is hampered by the lack of animal-welfare-relevant information in too many research articles. For example, a recent literature review indicated that in 2006, less than 5% of mouse research articles and 27% of primate research articles reported on the implementation (or justification for non-use) of painkillers [21]. These results suggest that the USDA's assertion may be of little value to researchers.…”