Last updated: 2 Feb. 2007
Balls M. Replacement of animal procedures: alternatives in research, education and testing. Lab Animal 1994 Jul;28(3):193-211.
Balcombe JP. Dissection: the scientific case for alternatives. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 2001;4:118-26. Download (565 kb).
SUMMARY
This article presents the scientific argument that learning methods that replace traditional nonhuman animal-consumptive methods in life sciences education—so-called alternatives to dissection—are pedagogically sound and probably superior to dissection. This article focuses on the pedagogy, a learning method’s effectiveness for conveying knowledge.
Capaldo T. The psychological effects on students of using animals in ways that they see as ethically, morally or religiously wrong. ATLA 2004;32 Suppl 1:525-531.
Cervinka M, Cervinkova Z, Novak J, Spicak J, Rudolf E, Peychl J. Our experiences with development of digitized video streams and their use in animal-free medical education. ATLA 2004;32 Suppl 1:521-523.
Chambers, J. N. Prospective peer review of animal use in teaching and research. [Journal article] Journal of Veterinary Medical Education. 1986. 13: 1, 5-7.
Dodge S. Under pressure from students, medical schools offer alternatives to use of live animals in experiments. The Chronicle of Higher Education 1989 Nov 15:A41, A43.
Downie R, Alexander L. The use of animals in biology teaching in higher education. Journal of Biological Education 1989 Summer;23(2):103-111.
Ferrari, A. Iorio, A. University teaching and conscientious objection to animal experiments. [Italian] Obiettivi e Documenti Veterinari. 1995. 16: 1, 21-23.
Gruber FP & Dewhurst DG. Alternatives to animal experimentation in biomedical
education. ALTEX 2004;21(Suppl 1):33-48.
Download (161 kb).
In education, it is important that students are not put in a
position in which they are forced to participate in animal experiments or to use
dead animals, killed especially for such purposes. Continued use of animal
experiments to demonstrate known facts or teach skills which can be taught using
nonanimal methods evidences only a lack of sensitivity towards students who
still maintain respect for life. In countries where animal testing in education
is reduced to close to zero, there is no evidence that the students who are
being trained are less capable or qualified. There are sufficient alternatives
available at relatively low-cost and with proven educational efficacy to allow
the vast majority of students who study biomedical science courses to qualify
without using animal experiments. However, in many universities across Europe,
there is still a resistance to adoption of such methods amongst faculty. The
global situation is probably worse with animals still being used in high school
teaching in some countries such as the USA.
[A high quality summary of alternatives. Includes some figures for European
educational animal use.]
Hagelin, J. Carlsson, H. E. Hau, J. The importance of student training in experimental procedures on animals in biomedical education. [Journal article] Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science. 2000. 27: 1, 35-41. 43 ref.
Jukes N. Replacement of harmful animal use in life science education: the approach and activities of InterNICHE. ATLA 2004;32 Suppl 1:511-515.
Describes various types of educational alternatives.
King, L. A. Ethics and welfare of animals used in education: an overview. [Journal article. Conference paper] Animal Welfare. Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW),Wheathampstead, UK: 2004. 13: Supplement, S221-S227. 44 ref.
Ethical, regulatory and scientific issues arise from the use of animals in education, from secondary level schooling through to veterinary and medical training. A utilitarian cost-benefit analysis can be used to assess whether animals should be used in scientific education. The 'benefit' aspect of this analysis can be examined through comparative studies of learning outcomes from animal-based versus alternative training methods, while the 'cost' in terms of harms to the animals used, can be subject to technical assessment using Russell and Burch's (1959) 3Rs rationale. Science has only just begun to delineate the effects of educational exercises on the welfare of subject animals. It has also begun to develop technologies and modes of instruction that reduce, refine or replace animal use in education, and instances of their successful implementation in the UK and in the USA will be highlighted. The implementation of these alternatives to animal use is inconsistent, and barriers to the adoption of alternatives include specific curriculum and legislative requirements, traditional educational methodology, and resource and training limitations, particularly when the alternative methods involve new technologies. A further problem arises from the lack of existing research data comparing the educational value of alternative, with traditional animal-based, instruction methods. Greater consistency in the use of methods that reduce, refine or replace harmful animal use could be achieved through improved knowledge of the extent and type of alternative resources currently used in particular fields of scientific education; international comparisons of educational practice; close scrutiny and harmonization of evaluation methods; and consistency in the ethical review of educational animal use. Information and training, both in the 3Rs and in the use of specific alternative methods, could be disseminated throughout the life sciences. Evaluative research of the educational efficacy of traditional animal-based methods versus refinements or replacements would provide high quality data on which to base decisions regarding teaching methods. Since educational exercises involving animals also impart ethical training, whether inadvertently or directly, instruction in applied ethics should be considered a key element of any education programme involving animals.
Knight A. Alternatives to harmful animal use in tertiary education. Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 1999;27:967-74. Download (71 kb).
Introduces humane educational alternatives, some of the courses worldwide where they’re successfully used, and the reasons given for and against their use. The author wrote it as a reference paper for students campaigning for humane alternatives in their education. Also describes the author's experiences as a conscientious objector at Western Australia's Murdoch University veterinary school in 1998. An updated, unpublished version with more recent figures re: availability of alternatives in North American veterinary and medical schools is also available on request.
Leonard WH. A comparison of student performance following instruction by interactive videodisc versus conventional laboratory. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 1992;29(1):93–102.
In the use of videodisc or traditional laboratories, no significant difference was found for biology undergraduate students' laboratory grades. However, the videodisc group required one-half the time.
Martinsen S & Jukes N. Towards a humane
veterinary education. Journal of Veterinary Medical Education
2006;32(4):454-60.
Download (87 kb).
There is a vast array of learning tools and approaches to veterinary education, many tried and true, many innovative and with potential. Such new methods have come about partly from an increasing demand from both students and teachers to avoid methods of teaching and training that harm animals. The aim is to create the best quality education, ideally supported by validation of the efficacy of particular educational tools and approaches, while ensuring that animals are not used harmfully and that respect for animal life is engendered within the student. In this paper, we review tools and approaches that can be used in the teaching of veterinary students, tools and approaches that ensure the dignity and humane treatment of animals that all teachers and students must observe as the very ethos of the veterinary profession that they serve. Veterinary education has not always met, and still often does not meet, this essential criterion.
Mathijsen, A. H. H. M. Exercises in surgery at the Utrecht veterinary school as a target of the anti-vivisection movement, 1878-1888. [Dutch] [Journal article] Argos. 1991. Speciale Uitgave, S75-S84. 40 ref.
McInerney JD. Animals in education: are we prisoners of false sentiment? The American Biology Teacher 1993 May;55(5):276-280.
Miller-Spiegel C. The use of animals in national high school student science fair projects in the United States. ATLA 2004;32 Suppl 1:495-500.
Mosier, D. A. Teleconferencing: can it be used for veterinary medical education? [Journal article] Journal of Veterinary Medical Education. 1989. 16: 2, 36-39. 10 ref.
Nobis N. Animal dissection and evidence-based life-science & health-professions education: a response to Jonathan Balcombe's commentators. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 2002;5(2):155-9. Download (36 kb).
[An evidence-based rebuttal of the critics of
Balcombe.
Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 2001;4:118-26 (see above)].
Nobis N.
In defense of 'How We Treat Our Relatives.' [Letter]. The American
Biology Teacher 2004;66(9):599-600.
Download (94 kb).
[The philosophical case for dissection
alternatives].
Orlans FB. Use of animals in education: Policy and practice in the United States. Journal of Biological Education 1991 Mar 01;25(1):27-32.
Attitudes and recent policy developments in the USA on the use of animals in education are reviewed, and the present legislative position outlined. The influence of science competitions and national teacher associations on practice is discussed. The still common invasive experimentation on sentient animals by young and inexperienced students is provoking increasing pressure for change and a more compassionate attitude towards animals.
In the United States, national policy to govern the use of animals in education (as distinct from the use of animals in research) is in its infancy.[1] Indeed, the use of animals in education has been left largely uncontrolled by legislation that is backed up with any enforcement. There are two intermeshing federal laws that govern the humane use of laboratory animals: the Animal Welfare Act 1966 and its amendments, administered by the US Department of Agriculture (subsequently referred to as the AWA); and the Health Research Extension Act of 1985 which gives legal status to the Public Health Service policy (see references). This policy is administered by the Office for Protection from Research Risks at the National Institutes of Health (subsequently referred to as the PHS policy).
The AWA specifically exempts elementary and secondary schools from its provisions and, historically, has barely touched the use of animals at the college level. Although, strictly speaking, colleges which use any of the regulated species (nonhuman primates, dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, and rabbits) do fall within the province of the law, the lack of an enforcement mechanism for control of animals in education has meant that no meaningful oversight has occurred. Furthermore, many colleges fall outside the province of the law because they do not use any of the regulated species, that is, they use only rats, mice, birds, and cold-blooded species--the species most commonly used for educational purposes.
The PHS policy governs only animal experiments financed by PHS government funds, the purpose of which is to support biomedical research, not education (Federal funds for education come from non-PHS sources). Thus, virtually all educational use of animals at the elementary, secondary, and college levels of instruction falls outside the purview of the law.
The structure of the United States' system is quite different from that of the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, controls exist on who can conduct animal experiments and where they can be done. Researchers and teachers who use animals have to be licensed, and locations authorized. All other persons and locations are banned. In the United States, no such restrictions apply. The result has been that any individuals, however junior and unskilled in either science or knowledge of humane techniques, have been allowed to conduct any animal experiments they like in whatever locations they choose, including their homes. These uncontrolled conditions have resulted in considerable animal abuse.
The prevalence of high school science competitions in the United States, called science fairs, in which teenagers conduct extra-curricular projects for monetary awards and prestige, has been largely responsible for this sorry state of affairs. Abuses reached their peak in 1969 when a 17-year-old student won a $250 prize in a national science competition for blinding sparrows by removing their eyeballs and then starving them to death. Even though some progress has been made since those days, and monkey surgery is no longer conducted in high school students' homes, teenagers still commonly attempt highly invasive animal experiments that inflict severe animal pain. Obviously, such projects are outside the law in England, and indeed would be unthinkable.
Over the last decade, social pressures for changes in the use of animals at all levels of American education have mounted. Many people are questioning the extent to which students need to harm or destroy animal life in order to learn biology (Orlans, 1988). The need for study and observation of both live and dead animals for advanced biology students is usually not the issue, but legitimate questions are raised regarding the age at which students should be introduced to invasive animal experimentation, if at all, and whether or not alternative studies could be substituted that do not harm or destroy animal life.
Public protests, state laws, legal challenges, and voluntary codes have all played their part in this mounting social pressure. Protests about science fairs date back to their inception 40 years ago, and still continue. More recently, national media attention has been given to students who have refused to participate in experiments ranging from the 'dog labs' in colleges to dissection of frogs in high schools. A handful of states have enacted laws prohibiting the infliction of pain on animals by elementary and secondary school students. Several students have pursued court challenges to inflexible school administrations that would not permit the student to abstain on conscientious grounds from certain animal experiments. Voluntary codes have emerged from professional science teachers' associations that promote humane treatment of animals and the pursuit of alternatives to invasive animal experimentation where possible.
But the most important change of all regarding animals in education was announced in 1989 and has the effect of law (Federal Register, 1989). For the first time, college-level instruction involving animal experimentation became subject to review by institutional oversight committees. These committees, called Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs), are the major mechanisms by which the provisions of the AWA and PHS policy are applied.
In 1985, new strengthening amendments were made to the AWA and the PHS policy to give new authority to IACUCs. They became the responsible bodies under the law for ensuring compliance with laboratory animal welfare policies. Committee membership had to include at least three members of whom one was a veterinarian and another a person not affiliated in any way with the institution. Importantly, IACUCs were charged with reviewing the proposed protocols of the actual experiments in addition to overseeing the animals' care. At this point in the development of national policy, in practice the main effect of these revisions fell on protocols for the use of animals in research.
It was not until 1989, as previously mentioned, that AWA provisions were strengthened so that the use of animals in education would receive meaningful institutional review. New regulations announced in the Federal Register and effective from 31 October 1989, require that all activities including 'those elements of . . . teaching procedures that involve the care and use of animals' shall be reviewed by an institutional oversight committee for compliance with nationally accepted standards.
This new provision affects student use of animals in all facilities that fall under the AWA. Importantly, this means all major universities. But because of various gaps in the law, student training (involving non-regulated animals such as rats and mice, frogs, and other common species) that occurs in many smaller colleges, community colleges, industrial facilities, and secondary and elementary schools is excluded.
Despite these exclusions, this strengthening of the law will have important effects. The major universities have a dominant role in setting standards. Whatever changes universities effect regarding the use of animals in education will tend eventually to improve standards in all other educational establishments.
Orlans FB. Investigator Competency and Animal Experiments: Guidelines for Elementary and Secondary Education. Lab Animal 1995;24(9):29-34.
Rowan AN. The use of alternatives in veterinary training. In Hendriksen CFM & Koeter HBWM. (Eds.). Animals in biomedical research. Replacement, reduction and refinement: present possibilities and future prospects. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier Science Publishers. 1991. 127-139.
Russell G. Alternatives in the teaching of biology at the secondary and university levels: An ongoing success story. Plenary talk given at the 3rd World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences, Bologna, Italy, 1999. 14 pp.
Schalke, E. Alternative and complementary methods in veterinary training (to avoid the use of live animals). [German] [Thesis] Ersatz- und Erganzungsmethoden in der tierarztlichen Ausbildung. Tierarztliche Hochschule Hannover,Hannover, Germany: 2000. 264.
Smith AJ, Smith K. Guidelines for humane education: Alternatives to the use of animals in teaching and training. ATLA 2004;32, Suppl 1:29-39.
Striezel, A.
The use of films and videocassettes in veterinary undergraduate and postgraduate
education. [German] [Thesis] Film und Video in der veterinarmedizinischen Aus-
und Weiterbildung.. Fachbereich Veterinarmedizin, Freie Universitat,
Berlin,Germany: 1991. 188. 70 pp. of ref.
Tomson FN. Approving the use of animals in medical education. Theor Med.
1989 Mar;10(1):35-42.
Animals have been and will continue to be used in educational programs, but some
concerns about the responsibility for assuring their proper care and humane use
need to be discussed. Research animals have been regulated and monitored quite
successfully by Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC). These
Committees are extending their responsibilities to cover animals used in
educational programs. Three common roles of these IACUCs are described,
including oversight, investigative and training responsibilities. Guidelines
developed for faculty using animals at the University of Florida are presented
and discussed.
Trigo, F. J. Parra, I. A. de la Lopez Buendia, G. Development of an interactive multimedia programme for veterinary medicine and zoology students. [Spanish] Veterinaria Argentina. 1997. 14: 132, 117-121. 15 ref.
van der Valk J, Dewhurst D, Hughes I, Atkinson J, Balcombe J, Braun H, Gabrielson K, Gruber F, Miles J, Nab J, Nardi J, Wilgenburg H, van Zinko U & Zurlo J. Alternatives to the use of animals in higher education. The report and recommendations of ECVAM workshop 33. ATLA 1999;27:39-52.
van Zutphen BFM. Education and animal experimentation. In Hendriksen C.F.M. & Koeter H.B.W.M. (Eds.). Replacement, Reduction and Refinement: Present Possibilities and Future Prospects. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier. 1991:119-125.
