Animal Care Committees

The Three Rs microsite was created, in part, to assist animal care committee members in finding easily accessible, useful and relevant information and resources on the Three Rs - Replacement, Reduction and Refinement alternatives. Therefore, the CCAC encourages animal care committee (ACC) members to use the entire microsite as a resource. (However, the information on the site is not meant to supplant CCAC guidelines, and will not be used as a basis for recommendations made in CCAC Assessment reports.)

Potential questions to consider during protocol review to encourage implementation of the Three Rs

• Is the proposed experiment duplicative?
• Are there any in vitro techniques that could replace use of animals?
• Are there any alternative animal models of lower sentience (i.e. invertebrates)?
• Is there useful and current information about the proposed animal model?
• Is there information on the proposed model that might allow the use of fewer animals or might reduce the pain experienced by the animals?
• Could in vitro methods be incorporated in any way into the protocol to reduce the number of animals used (e.g., for early screening)?
• Have statistical methods been used to determine sample sizes?
• Is there a way to decrease the level of invasiveness of the protocol without compromising the scientific objective?
• Is there information about assessing welfare and the level of pain of the animals?

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For more information that is directly applicable to animal care committee members, the following resources may be useful:

CCAC resources

• Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) Animal Care Committee Resources.
• Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) & Canadian Federation of Humane Societies (CFHS) (2006) CCAC-CFHS Manual for Community Representatives. 47pp. Ottawa ON: CCAC.
• Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) List of CCAC Guidelines.

  See in particular
  Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) (1998) CCAC guidelines on: choosing an appropriate endpoint for experiments using animals for research, teaching and testing. 30pp. Ottawa ON: CCAC.

  -This guidelines document includes a list of questions that ACC members can ask to ensure the implementation of humane endpoints.

• Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) (2000) CCAC policy statement on: the importance of independent peer review of the scientific merit of animal-based research projects.
• Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) (1989) CCAC policy statement on: ethics of animal investigation.
• Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) (2009) Questions to assess if your Three Rs search is complete.

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Online resources

• Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) (2010) Ethical Review.
• Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) (2009)
  A resource book for lay members of ethical Review Processes - 2nd edition.
• Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) (2004) Supplementary Resources for lay members of Local Ethical Review Processes: Projects Involving Genetically Modified Animals. 46pp. Horsham, West Sussex: RSPCA.
• National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Animal Welfare Committee (2007) NHMRC Guidelines for the Generation, Breeding, Care and Use of Genetically Modified and Cloned Animals for Scientific Purposes. 42pp. Canberra: NHMRC

  - This guidelines document contains a list of questions that animal care committee members can ask to ensure implementation of the Three Rs during the generation, care, and use of genetically-engineered animals.

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Other publications

• Schuppli C.A. & Fraser D. (2007) Factors influencing the effectiveness of research ethics committees. Journal of Medical Ethics 33:294-301.

  -This study of Canadian animal care committees examines how the effectiveness of a research ethics committee is influenced by committee composition and dynamics, recruitment of members, workload, participation level and member turnover, and suggests potential ways to improve the effectiveness of ACCs.

• Schuppli C.A. & Fraser D. (2005) The interpretation and application of the Three Rs by animal ethics committee members. Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 33:487-500.
  

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