Excerpts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Report on USDA administration and enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act during Fiscal Year 2004. Accessed http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/downloads/awreports/awreport2006.pdf, 16 Jan. 2008. Download (337 kb).
 

CONTENTS

- FY 2006 AWA inspections
- Animals used in research: all categories
- Animals used in research: no pain and no drugs
- Animals used in research: with pain and no drugs
- Animals used in research: with pain and with drugs
- Number of animals used by research from the first reporting year (FY 1973) to FY 2006

United States laboratory animal use is federally regulated by the Animal Welfare Act (1966, amended 1985), which excludes laboratory-bred mice and rats, as well as non-mammals, from consideration and protection (Goldberg 2002, Stephens et al. 2002), despite the fact that mice and rats comprise the overwhelming majority of all laboratory subjects. These USDA statistics exclude unregulated species and hence represent a tiny fraction of US laboratory animal use. For example, although 1,012,713  regulated animals were used in Fiscal Year 2006—the latest reporting period—Carbone (2004) estimated that in excess of 100 million mice are used annually. This estimate is a dramatic increase from the 17 to 22 million vertebrates used in the mid 1980s (OTA 1986).

 

References

- Carbone, L. (2004). What Animals Want: Expertise and Advocacy in Laboratory Animal Welfare Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

- Goldberg, A.M. (2002). Use of animals in research: a science--society controversy? The American perspective: animal welfare issues. Altex: Alternatives to Animal Experimentation 19(3), 137-139.

- Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), U.S. Congress. (1986). Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing and Education. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, OTA-BA-273.

- Stephens, M.L., Alvino, G.M. & Branson, J.B. (2002). Animal pain and distress in vaccine testing in the United States. Developments in biologicals 111, 213-216.