The use of laboratory rodents is, and will continue to be, essential in biomedical research. However, like all living things, laboratory rodents have their associated "baggage" of other organisms, whether paying passengers, silent stowaways, or mutineers and pirates of the goods at hand. In other words, we should expect laboratory rodents to have characteristic health flaws. The field of labora...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Few studies have described relations between exposure to laboratory animals and the incidence of laboratory animal allergy (LAA). Studies that have found exposure-response relations have been cross sectional in design or have focused on exposure to rats and mice. This study used longitudinal data collected over a 12 year period to describe the relations between indices of ex...

The commonsense ethical constraints on laboratory animal research known as the three Rs are widely accepted, but no constraints tailored to research on animals in the wild are available. In this article, we begin to fill that gap. We sketch a set of commonsense ethical constraints on ecosystem research parallel to the constraints that govern laboratory animal research. Then we combine the anima...

Altex 31, 2/14 224 Alternatives Initiative in Sri Lanka: Preand Post-Conference Workshops at the Inaugural Scientific Conference of the Sri Lanka Association for Laboratory Animal Science Mangala Gunatilake 1, Francois Busquet 2, and Mohammad A. Akbarsha 3 Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka; Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT)-Europe, Ko...

The Dutch Act on Animal Experimentation (1996) requires that local animal experiments committees (AECs) review animal experiments and balance the scientific and societal benefits of the experiments against the suffering caused to the animals used. Each AEC is composed of at least seven members who provide a balance of expertise in animal experiments, alternatives to laboratory animal experiment...

There exists currently a fair degree of introspection in the pain research community about the value of animal research. This review represents a defense of animal research in pain. We discuss the inherent advantage of animal models over human research as well as the crucial complementary roles animal studies play vis-à-vis human imaging and genetic studies. Finally, we discuss recent developme...

Radiotelemetry is the "state of the art" for monitoring physiological functions in awake and freely moving laboratory animals, while minimizing stress artifacts. For researchers, especially those in the fields of pharmacology and toxicology, the technique provides a valuable tool for defining the physiological and pathophysiological consequences derived from advances molecular, cellular, and ti...

a 5-year-old male cross-bred guard dog with signs of anorexia, vomiting and jaundice was referred to small animal hospital, faculty of veterinary medicine, university of tehran. initial diagnostic laboratory tests revealed leukocytosis, thrombocytopenia, haemoconcentration, azotaemia, high liver enzyme activities, proteinuria and bilirubinuria. aggressive therapeutic procedures failed to improv...