Abstract
As current (CSD) and past editors (PAF, TM), we wish to communicate that a robust editorial policy for this journal 1 requiring local ethical review of studies and its conformance with national or regional regulations has existed for many years. Scientific publishing is founded on the originality and integrity of the data reported and Laboratory Animals takes its obligations on ethics relating to the use of animals in biomedical research seriously. This is attested by our uniquely detailed instructions to authors concerning animals and the methodology of work on animals but also by the robust declarations made by authors when they submit a manuscript. The journal's policy includes discretion for the editor to apply regulatory standards of the UK in any cases of particular ethical or welfare concern. The specification of the UK regulation is an acknowledgement of the jurisdiction where the journal is published and where the journal's proprietor, Laboratory Animals Limited, has been registered as a company and a charity. Most recently, this critical component of the journal's editorial policy has incorporated the Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare for Veterinary Journals 2 published by the International Association of Veterinary Editors (IAVE). Indeed, IAVE used the Laboratory Animals policy as the framework for its own initial proposals in 2008. For the review of the manuscript of Duvareille et al., 3 two independent peer reviews supporting publication were obtained and one of those reviews was undertaken by an expert in the contemporary application of UK regulations and ethical review.
Pfister et al. 4 are effectively requesting that the instructions to authors be further expanded to allow more information to feed into the editing and reviewing process to assess the benefits to society from the data submitted for publication. To a large extent Pfister et al. 4 have answered their own question as the assessment of the outcome of ethical review depends on the overall context of the programme of work rather than any one single study, or in this case methodology, within that programme. Authors, as acknowledged by Pfister et al., 4 are not publishing an entire programme of work but original data of novelty and incremental value to their field. Indeed, as indicated by Praud et al., 5 the wider context and implications of their publication in this journal were part of ethical review and the original paper clearly gives the societal and medical context for sudden infant death syndrome 3 and postnatal exposure.
We believe the inclusion of more detailed information about a programme of work and its benefits beyond what is normally included in the introduction to an original scientific paper is likely to incompletely duplicate the local or national ethical review process. There is also risk of scientific reviewers misinterpreting issues outside of the wider and more diverse ethical, legal, societal and cultural frameworks of ethical review, and so unfairly re-judging the original local or national ethical review. A significant component of ethical review is the group discussion of complex matters and it seems difficult to replicate this remotely to and independently of its original setting. This of course would also result in authors providing details well beyond what is required to allow others in the field to repeat the study or to justify the discrete approaches or hypothesis presented in the submitted manuscript. In turn this may require reviewers to make qualitative assessments on ethics due to the expansion of content of a manuscript, rather than focusing on the integrity and originality of the data presented. Furthermore, consideration must be given to the risk that authors could perceive this journal's instructions as prejudicing the novelty and originality of their programme of work by asking them to publicly disclose their approaches and ideas to a greater extent than they might otherwise volunteer in a single paper at a given stage in their work.
Laboratory Animals often publishes data relating to qualification or validation of animal models or data that support refinement in methodologies which help reduce the welfare costs experienced by animals during experimental procedures. For the journal to set a transparent and consensual threshold on ethical acceptability across the scope of subject matter it considers for publication is extremely challenging. As an alternative we already require authors to achieve existing standards of local or national ethical review. Finally, while there are finite resources and a demanding timeline to review, edit and publish scientific data, we urge caution before introducing new steps into the publication process which shifts the onus, indeed invariably a regulatory requirement, for ethical evaluation away from researchers, ethical review bodies and institutions towards the reviewers and editor of a scientific journal.