Animal Welfare Institute

The Food Alliance has both fixed standards, which specifically prohibit the use of feed additives or subtherapeutic antibiotics, growth hormones, and genetically modified stock, and scored standards, which focus on more particular practices such as feed production, pasture management, manure management, and animal pest management. The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has also setup operational standards called the Humane Husbandry Criteria that farmers who produce meat for companies such as Niman Ranch voluntarily implement in order to receive the AWI certification. 

Comfortable Quarters for Laboratory Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, Washington, D.C., 1979. 

The U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) also has an Animal Welfare Policy that applies to all NIH-funded projects involving animals. The NIH requires that the institutions follow the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, prepared by the Institute for Laboratory Animal Resources of the National Research Council. Any institution that receives funding from the PHS is required by law to comply with the Guide, or else it will lose funding. 

The Federal Animal Welfare Act (PL 89-544) governs the purchase of dogs and cats for use in research and teaching. Under this law, these species may be purchased only from (1) a dealer hcensed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal/Plant Health inspection Service (USDA/APHIS), (2) a commercial breeder hcensed with USPA/APHIS, (3) local or county animal shelters (recognizing that, at this time, a number of states prohibit the sale of pound animals for research or teaching), or (4) another research institution which has obtained the animals from any of these sources. 

There is an urgent need for of eco-friendly partnerships between private industry and public welfare institutions. Effective communications systems and critical-thinking skills are needed for the broad dissemination of ecological principles across traditional disciplines. The formation of public values that take into consideration the effect of human activity on other life systems should be part of the essential core curriculum at all levels of education. Such partnerships go beyond the local community to include international consortiums concerned with the full range of effects of commodities exchange, the genetic transfer of plants and animals, effective sanitation and waste-disposal practices, and the disciplined use and distribution of chemical substances. 

The animal dosing experiments were carried out in accordance to the US National Institutes of Health Guide to the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the Animal Welfare Act. 

The use of animals in tissue engineering research has become a scientific as well as an ethical issue. Generally, the use of invertebrates is preferred over vertebrates and the use of rats, rabbits, goats, and sheep are preferred over dogs and cats due to their pet status. AH animal protocols should be approved by the researcher s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee to ensure that the experiments are appropriately designed, the number of animals is justified, and the animal procedures comply with the Animal Welfare Act. 

The U.S. army experimental studies cited herein were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, and aU procedures were conducted in accordance with the principles stated in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-544), as amended. The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy of the army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government. 

Dr Mette Vaarst, Department of Animal Health, Welfare and Nutrition, Research Center Foulum, Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Postboks 50, Tjele 8830, Denmark. Tel +45 89 991 344, Fax +45 89 991 525,... 

U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, National Institutes of Health. Disposal of refuse laboratory waste, dead animals, glassware and similar items. Manual Issuance 3032. NIH - 1511-1. 

The National Institutes of Health have created a handbook. Methods and Welfare Considerations in Behavioral Research with Animals, to assist the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee in the evaluation of protocols that employ various means to manipulate the behavior and health of laboratory animals. The report contains chapters on manipulation of access to food or fluids experimental enclo-sures/physical restraint pharmacological studies aversive stimuli social variables ethological approaches and teaching with animals. ASTM International has come up with Standard Guide for... 

At the request of Health and Welfare Canada, the U.S. National Cancer Institute conducted animal tests on a sample submitted by Resperin Corp. In a mouse lymphocytic leukemia system, essiac showed no activity, but it did show toxicity at the highest levels tested. ... 

---