ETHICAL AND WELFARE ISSUES IN ANIMAL USAGE IN BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH

Contemporary research in the life sciences, and particularly biomedicine,involves experimentation on live animals. This research is considered animportant tool in the progress of science. Much of it is directed towards thediscovery of new ways to prevent, alleviate, or cure human and animaldiseases. The overwhelming majority of these animals are mammals withhighly developed nervous systems. They neither consent to their ownparticipation in research, nor benefit from such participation. They also appearto be capable of experiencing pain and other forms of sufferings.It is a pre-requisite to know the ethical and welfare measures in any typeof experiments involving the animals and to adopt the guidelines of CPCSEA soas to minimize the pain and sufferings of the animals recruited in theexperiments.