Animal Research Critics Pin Hopes on New Law for More Humane Care

WASHINGTON — After a cease-fire prompted by protests, Pentagon doctors are again shooting at pigs and goats to study how bullets and shrapnel affect human tissue.

At another government agency, scientists are inducing a condition much like Parkinson’s disease in monkeys to try to learn more about how people get the debilitating illness and how to treat it.

In other laboratories, research animals are subjected to shocks, isolation or drug dependence to gain insight into human behavior.

Such diverse scientific experiments and tests make up the broad spectrum of U.S. animal research. On some of the tests ride much of mankind’s hope for progress against suffering and disease. Others hold the prospects for billions of dollars worth of current and future commercial products.

Justification Challenged

But much of the animal research is under fire, the subject of vehement debate over whether there is justification for the suffering or deaths of the animals that scientists contend hold the keys to knowledge.

Animal welfare advocates, who have accused researchers in some instances of running “concentration camps for animals,” are stepping up pressure on the federal government to require humane care for laboratory animals.

They say many researchers have what Christine Stephens, the grande dame of animal welfare lobbyists, calls “a peculiar philosophy” based on the belief that animal suffering is less, or at least less important, than that of people.

Scientists counter that horror stories about the treatment of laboratory animals are the exception rather than the rule. They are concerned that emerging federal rules will tie their hands or price vital research out of reach.

“We certainly recognize there are some problems,” said Melissa Brown of the Assn. of American Medical Colleges. “We just differ over the extent to which there are problems out there. . . . Our feeling is that the research is beneficial, and it’s helping mankind and animals. That’s the price we have to pay.”

Both sides are closely watching developments in Washington, as officials translate into concrete regulations the provisions of a new law. It is designed to strengthen the 20-year-old Animal Welfare Act, which governs the treatment of laboratory animals.

‘Terribly Long Time’

“It’s taken a terribly long time,” Stephens said of the new provisions, which were included in 1985 farm legislation. “But I think the changes will make a tremendous difference. This is a very important law.”

The use of animals in laboratories is so diverse that no one has precise figures on how many creatures are sacrificed each year in the name of science.

Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment estimates that 17 million to 22 million animals are used in U.S. scientific experiments and testing each year. Animal advocates put the figure far higher, at 70 million or more. Because the nation lacked a comprehensive mechanism to regulate such activities, the actual figure is anyone’s guess.

What is certain is that the favorites of researchers are rats and mice. Their annual use in laboratories numbers in the millions. Research rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters total perhaps half a million each, the congressional researchers believe. Use of dogs and cats is substantially lower, and the number of primates is in the tens of thousands.

Animals are used in three basic ways: for research, ranging from investigations of cancer and AIDS to behavioral studies of aggression and addiction; for testing products like drugs and cosmetics before they are released for human use; and, to a much lesser extent, in education, particularly of medical and veterinary students.

Incident With Kittens

Those who advocate strict limits and standards use occasional horror stories as ammunition, like a 1981 incident at Ohio State University. There, kittens in a laboratory were given identification tags on chains around their necks. As the kittens grew, the chains became embedded in the animals’ flesh. The university settled the case in 1983 by paying a $500 fine without admitting guilt.

Much criticism also was leveled at the University of Pennsylvania, where technicians were shown on videotapes casually bashing primates’ heads to remove helmets glued on for a study of head injuries. The tapes had been pirated by an underground animal rights group, the Animal Liberation Front, and led last year to a $4,000 fine against the university.

But those who use animals say most researchers are conscientious and do not abuse their charges.

“I’d say it’s like any other business,” said Jim Hansen, a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the agency charged with enforcing the Animal Welfare Act. “The vast majority of people do a good job.”

In some cases, researchers have found that they can do without animals.

For example, the cosmetics industry, stung by public criticism, learned that products can be tested through test-tube methods instead of using the traditional procedure--squirting substances in rabbits’ eyes to see whether they blister or blind the animals.

Use Mainly Unregulated

For most of its history, laboratory animal use has gone relatively unregulated in the United States.

Private groups have their own standards, and government agencies like the National Institutes of Health have policies governing research done under federal contracts.

But it was not until 1966 that Congress gave such standards the force of law, designating the USDA as the watchdog for treatment of warm-blooded animals in laboratories, breeding facilities, pet shops and zoos.

That law, the Animal Welfare Act, governs only the housekeeping of those who use animals. It specifies cage sizes, ventilation, sanitation and feeding requirements, but leaves decisions about whether to use animals, or how to use them, up to the scientists. As currently administered, it excludes rats and mice from protection.

“We’re saying you can do anything you can think of to an animal in this country” so long as it is fed and kept in a clean cage, said Patricia Forkan of the Humane Society. Even those standards, she said, are poorly enforced.

The act has been amended three times. Animal advocates say last year’s changes are the most significant yet because, for the first time, they will require animal users to set up care committees that include one outside “public” member with no ties to the institution.

‘Psychological Well-Being’

The revisions also include a requirement that institutions provide for “the psychological well-being” of primates and for regular exercise for caged dogs. Both changes worry researchers because of the expense of carrying them out.

“There are no scientific data which say any minimum exercise per day, or per week, is physiologically better,” said Frankie Trull, director of the National Assn. for Biomedical Research. “You just sleep better at night because you think if exercise is good for you, it must be good for the dog.”

She said scientists agree in principle with animal welfare groups about the need for adequate care. Mistreated animals, those under abnormal stress, make for bad research and dubious results, Trull said, and that is one reason research institutions have developed their own voluntary care guidelines.

“But does every rat have the right to its own house? What is the trade-off to the American public? If we lose animal research, what do we lose in the process? It could put us 10 years farther away from an answer to juvenile diabetes.”