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Animals & Research Part 5: animals get good care
Friday, April 21, 2000
By CYNTHIA PEKOW
Although polls say most Americans accept that research animals are needed to advance medical science, many people feel squeamish thinking about animals used in experimentation. Bad press and allegations of poor care -- and worse -- worry us.
In 1966, Life magazine featured dogs enduring horrid conditions while waiting to be sold to research labs. Public outcry after the article appeared led to passage of the federal Animal Welfare Act. This law and other regulations address our concerns by specifying the care required for research animals, as well as the conditions under which they may be acquired and used for medical research.
My job is also part of the structure dictated by the Animal Welfare Act. I am a veterinarian, and caring for laboratory animals is my chosen field.
Good care is the norm in research animal facilities. People tend to focus on dogs or monkeys, but it is mice and rats that account for well over 90 percent of all research animals.
Rodents generally are housed in small groups in plastic "shoebox" units, lined with absorbent bedding. Rodent caging is becoming increasingly high-tech. In the newest units, each cage individually receives filtered air-flow, to prevent disease and to eliminate waste moisture. Yet we also add low-tech accouterments, such as cotton material for rodents to shred and nest in, and plastic tubes for them to climb through and hide in.
Caging and husbandry originally designed to meet researchers' needs now are being designed to better meet the animals' needs. An analogy can be made to children's hospital wards of years ago, designed for efficiency in keeping things readily sanitized. Scant consideration was paid to how the stark environment might affect the psychological well-being of the patients. Today, children's hospital rooms are more cheerfully decorated, with places for parents to stay at bedside. We have made the connection with health or healing and emotional comfort.
So too, with animals. Healthy, unstressed animals and good science go hand in hand. Preference testing allows the animals to show us which features they want in their environment. For example, a monkey might choose vertical space in preference to greater floor area, while a guinea pig may choose additional hiding places.
Beyond cage conditions, the attention and care provided the animals are what makes their environment humane. Stasia is a research technician who consistently can be found holding, cuddling and providing treats for her rats. When one of her animals has undergone a procedure, she provides it with slices of fresh fruit afterward.
Part 1: Unlocking the secrets of genetic disease through animal research
Part 2: Improving medical treatments for animals
Part 3: Animals are key to discovering new medicines
Part 4: The ethics of using animals in research
Part 5: How research animals live
Nancy provides an exercise period for the rabbits she tends each day, just as she does for her pets at home. These staff members are a big part of assuring the humane care of research animals.
The people who interact daily with the animals are the first to pick up on even subtle changes, and alert veterinary staff. Lee, with seven years on the job, can be counted on to detect a mouse with ruffled fur, or a rabbit with a slightly changed disposition. My job includes ensuring that animal care staff are provided instruction in husbandry, as well as in the biology of the animals and the reasons for their use. The caretakers' training, knowledge and concern are the animals' first allies.
Dedicated people staff research animal facilities. There is no glamour in daily animal care. Caretaker pay, also far from glamorous, doesn't keep people in the business. Maintaining a compassionate outlook while caring for animals whose lives will be taken exerts an emotional toll. One can liken the work to that of nursing in a cancer ward or animal pound.
So what are the rewards? They begin with the sense of purpose and the consolation that come from seeing and interacting with the animals, knowing you play a key part in their well-being, and, less tangibly, knowing that the research can contribute powerfully to advances in medical care for animals and people. Lee feels good to have discovered that providing a nylon chew toy to mice stops fighting within their cage. Stasia has found her rats prefer baked yam as a treat, and likes to know that she can give something extra to the animals that provide her research data.
Outside our workplaces, we face the social unease of having a politically incorrect career. We are hesitant to share our workday failures or triumphs with those outside our field. When you tell a person that you work with animals, the initial response is often that you must be a warm, fuzzy, sympathetic person. When you reveal that the animals are of the research variety, the warm, fuzzy view is commonly replaced by a cold, prickly image. How can you DO that? is a frequent response. The answer is: How can we NOT do that? We are trained to provide quality care, we are always looking to improve animal well-being and we care about our charges. Who better to do this necessary work?
We would rejoice if scientific advances could make animals superfluous to medical research. People like to think that cells grown in flasks or sophisticated computer programs can replace animals. These helpful modalities do form our first steps in the research process and guide our experimental focus. A heartening example is Corrositex, a tissue-culture-based alternative to skin testing. Physiome Sciences, Inc. offers a computer program that predicts drug effects on cardiac muscle, so that only the most promising compounds are tested on animals.
But cells grown outside a body, and computer programs, cannot yet predict the complex interactions that occur in an entire living system. Replacement of animals is not here yet, nor is it coming very soon.
For the time being, we refine our techniques to minimize pain and distress, improve the animals housing and train the caretakers. Most of all, we are aware that the use of animals is a privilege, and we care for them accordingly.
Cynthia Pekow is a doctor of veterinary medicine and is certified as a specialist in laboratory animal medicine. She is clinical assistant professor in the Department of Comparative Medicine at the University of Washington. She is a member of the Washington Association for Biomedical Research.
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