The Influence of Animal Discomfort,Human Interest and Scientific Quality on the Ethical Acceptability of a Projected Animal Experiment as Assessed with Questionnaires

Abstract

This study attempts to assess to what extent three selected variables (animal discomfort, scientific quality and human interest) determine the ethical acceptability of a projected animal experiment, as judged by animal experimenters. Two levels of each of the three variables were incorporated into otherwise identical protocols of a hypothetical animal experiment. Thus, there were eight different protocols with various combinations of the variables. In a postal survey, animal experimenters were asked to assign an acceptability score to the projected animal experiment described and to give a short written justification of their score. Human interest had the greatest influence on acceptability scores, followed by animal discomfort and scientific quality. Arguments concerning scientific quality played a major role in determining acceptability scores. At high levels of animal discomfort, the projected experiment was considered acceptable when both human interest and scientific quality were high. Thus, it remains questionable whether, in practice, a well-designed experiment with significant, expected human interest would be dismissed because of a high or moderate degree of anticipated animal discomfort.