Which is the exact role of Journal Editors and Reviewers in the observation of Guidelines on Animal Welfare?

DIAZ SL

Helsinki

Congreso; 11th FELASA - 40th Scand-LAS Joint Meeting; 2010

Federation of European Laboratory Animals Science Associations (FELASA))

Most of scientific journals, including those of higher impact factors, ask authors to include a statement in their articles affirming working in agreement with international regulations on the use and care of laboratory animals. This affirmation supposes that all the experiments conducted on animals have been for instance, evaluated and accepted by an Ethical Committee and, that animal welfare has been considered all along the experimental protocols. Nevertheless, it is very common to find incoherencies between the methodologies described and the guidelines claimed to be respected. This situation reveals a double dilemma. First, the fact that the animal welfare is not always observed, implicating discomfort or even worse, suffering to animals involved. Second, revision of manuscripts by reviewers and editors is sometimes done without taking into account ethical and regulatory aspects concerning the use of laboratory animals. Underestimation of pain suffering, ambiguous human endpoints and other examples concerning the situation described above will be discussed. In a period of great debate about the modifications to the European legislation on the use of laboratory animals, this work intends to call the attention to researchers about the need of respecting the already effective regulations and moreover, to journal editors who have the responsibility of publishing scientific articles strictly in line with current legislation.