ADVANCING REFINEMENT OF LABORATORY-ANIMAL USE

Whatever view is taken of the morality of using animals in scientific research and safety testing, it can generally be agreed that so long a s such use continues, every effort should be made to keep animal suffe ring to a minimum. This is the thinking behind the 'Three Rs' of refin ement, reduction and replacement of laboratory animal use. This paper concerns refinement. We recognize that the Three Rs are taken very ser iously in many countries of the world [see for example a recent editor ial in the journal Science (Goldberg et al. 1996)] and, although we ha ve written this paper from our own perspective in the UK, its principl es are generally applicable.