Putting the Ethical Principles into Practice

Beauchamp and DeGrazia introduce a framework of core values and principles for animal research studies that is more comprehensive than the leading alternative—Russell and Burch’s Three-Rs scheme of replacing, refining, and reducing laboratory animal use. Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s principles flesh out both social benefit requirements and animal welfare values. I recommend changes that would make their framework a real force in the conduct of animal research. One positive change would be a requirement to increase the diversity of institutional committee membership. A better scientific review system would substantially improve assessments of the justification of research studies. Existing government provisions on animal research direct committees to consider scientific quality but fail to provide the tools for doing so. Setting limits on the number of animals allowed in research is another needed policy change.

The Potential and Impacts of Practical Application of Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s Six Principles

This commentary focuses on the potential and impacts of practically engaging Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s six principles of animal research ethics in industry, government, and academic laboratories. Specifically addressed is how veterinarians can and should work closely with Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) in employing the principles to assess ways of improving our understanding of animals’ health, welfare, and desires. By contrast to the Russell and Burch Three-Rs model, Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s principles would substantially change how human benefits are balanced against animal harms and how pain medications are intentionally withheld from animals. Following these principles would also improve harm–benefit evaluations, requiring a stronger assessment of social benefit.

Principles of Animal Research Ethics

The centerpiece section of this book on animal research ethics presents a new moral framework of general principles. It is preceded in the front matter by a preamble that explains the overall project in the book as well as in the sections specifically on the six principles. The centerpiece section first discusses the essential place of ethical justification in the animal research arena and then presents the framework of three principles of social benefit and three principles of animal welfare. Next it examines both the critical role played by ethics committees in a well-functioning system of ethical review of animal research and the idea of scientific necessity as a justification for harming animal subjects. The section closes with an analysis of the influential Three-Rs framework, as presented in Russell and Burch’s Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. Despite the Three Rs’ important advance in the promotion of animal welfare, it does not adequately address the costs and benefits of animal research to human beings and lacks a comprehensive program of animal-subjects protection.

The Six Principles, Philosophy, and Applying Human Ethics to Animals

Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s framework of six principles of animal research ethics is arguably the most constructive step forward in the ethics of animal experimentation in the past fifty years. Their advance beyond the influential Three-Rs framework is due to their display of the core values and basic principles in animal research ethics. Further work on the practical implementation of their principles can start by focusing on how to better weigh human interests against animal interests. This is where a great fudge can loom large: either human benefit is overestimated or harm to animals is underestimated. How benefits and harms can be more precisely understood, evaluated, and balanced is critical. To this end, this commentary expands on Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s principle of sufficient value to justify harm, principle of basic needs, and principle of upper limits to harm.

Commentary on the Beauchamp-DeGrazia Framework of Principles

Many of us in the animal research community regularly face an internal conflict. We witness developments of new treatments while recognizing that animals experience study-based harms despite our systems of care. Beauchamp and DeGrazia identify significant gaps left by reigning models of harm–benefit principles and the Three Rs. Their six principles must be seriously considered in debates about the conditions of morally justified animal research because they provoke bioethical questions neglected by harm–benefit analyses (HBA) and the Three Rs. However, some problems need more discussion than can be found in Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s framework. For example, more material on basic research and its justification would be helpful, as would analysis of how improvements in study design are paramount for increasing the benefit of HBA.

Preamble

Research involving animals has advanced since its inception without the aid of a framework of general moral principles. The need for such a framework might therefore be doubted, but several developments call for a reconsideration and reconstruction of animal research ethics. First, public concerns about animal welfare have increased substantially in recent decades and continue to increase. Second, the scientific study of animals has afforded a wealth of new insights into their behaviors, mental lives, and basic needs. Third, animal ethics emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century as an important field of interdisciplinary scholarship and has expanded for several decades, frequently challenging traditional ways of thinking about animals’ moral status and human responsibilities for their care and use....

Compassion for Other Animals Beyond the Human Hierarchy of Concern

Beauchamp and DeGrazia provide a moral framework meant to enhance the well-being of research animals—and thereby animal research. They offer six principles that they argue any reasonable person would accept as conditions for permitting invasive animal research. While some are implicit in the current regulatory regime, the authors’ framework gives individual researchers the ability to challenge committee and institutional decisions on explicit moral grounds. Although the authors have provided a useful moral framework that improves upon the time-tested Three Rs, their framework has important limitations pertaining to assumptions about human psychology—specifically, our ability to perceive pain in animals.

The Mouse in the Room

Animal research scientists often dismiss ethical thinking as a waste of time either because it seems indeterminate or because there appears to be a yawning gap between regulations, which they must follow, and ethical treatment of animals. By outlining a framework of clearly articulated ethical principles, Beauchamp and DeGrazia provide an invaluable bridge. They examine our current regulatory system through the lens of their framework, exposing both its strengths and weaknesses. The first half of this commentary argues for the value of this exercise. The second half provides case examples where applying these ethical principles empowers us to change how we approach current regulatory problems.

Some Reflections on Primates in Research

This commentary offers refinements and extensions of Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s recommendations in Principles of Animal Research Ethics. The code of ethics that we apply to other species is grounded in our estimation of their mental lives, which affects our respect for them. Much in animal research ethics boils down to how much gain justifies how much pain, presented by Beauchamp and DeGrazia as the principle of sufficient value to justify harm. This pain-to-gain balance is affected by how much consciousness and sentience we attribute to other species. Another major issue is how animals should be housed. Ideally, research facilities would move toward permitting primates to be in the company of familiar others all the time. This enlightened approach would be complemented by Beauchamp and DeGrazia’s more careful ethical justification of research.