Putting a Price on Our Morals

EXPENSES IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH WITH ANIMAL MODELS

  • cost of animals
  • food and water
  • bedding
  • cage processing and changing
  • animal care technician time
  • experimental materials and apparatus
  • salary of institutional researcher
  • salary of veterinarians
  • miscellaneous administrative fees accumulates daily

A) The Danger of Viewing Animals as Resources and Products:

Case Study:

 

  • Principle investigators’ mice are charged $1 a cage per day
  • Facilty’s own colonies (C57/6J and CD1 mice, Wistar and Sprague-Dawley rats): profited only from internal or external research laboratories orders and purchase
  • Problem: Demands for research mice and rats varies in number and age depending on grant availability and protocol needs, therefore difficult to maintain an optimal number of purchasable colony animals
  • Result: Excess, old, and/or phenotypically undesirable were culled monthly for economic conservation and spatial liberation
  • Monthly:  30% of the animals (approximately 450 cages, each with an average of 3 animals; 3*450 = 1350 animals each month) are regularly disposed of, with new breeders set up to replace them

Things got worse…

  • In October 2011, the facility is $1 million in deficit
  • Can no longer afford to keep all colonies
  • First: 30 cages of Wistar rats taken off inventory
  • Second: 200 of out 300 cages of CD1 mice disposed of
  • Last but not least:  Elimination of 300 cages of Sprague-Dolly rats

Improvement:

  • Great room for improvement on research facility’s financial management, and the need to balance cost and benefits research animals as products

B) Expensive Transgenic Mice

  • Cost of procedure (injecting desired modified genes into several mice embryos to create one genotypically correct mouse): $4000 to $5200 USD
  • Consequences of high price: Researcher want to maximize the use of each animal and set later endpoints, which could conflict with the interest of animal welfare.
  • E.g. Principle investigator was so keen on saving a litter of pups that could contribute greatly to their studies that he/she instructed the technicians to keep the conspicuously deteriorating diabetic breeder female until weaning date

Improvement:

  • Transgenic procedures should become more widespread and less expensive through training more competent technicians and research assistants to perform these techniques

C) Costs to Improve Welfare:

  • CCAC’s euthanasia guidelines: suggests that initial induction of the animal with inhalant anesthetics is likely more humane than euthanasia with just carbon dioxide
  • Problem: Rodent anesthesia system costs more than $2000 USD

Improvement:

  • CCAC could consider financially subsidizing for purchase of apparatus needed for improved animal welfare at each research institute.

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