The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals

Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) are centrally important in applying laws about animal research in the United States. Most research involving laboratory animals is funded by the United States National Institutes of Health or, to lesser extents, other federal agencies. The NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) has been directed by law to develop policies that describe the role of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees.

Every institution that uses animals for federally funded laboratory research must have an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). Each local IACUC reviews research protocols and conducts evaluations of the institution's animal care and use, which includes the results of inspections of facilities that are required by law.

The corresponding, parallel, and equivalent local ethical body responsible for overseeing U.S. federally funded research involving humans is the Institutional Review Board (IRB).

The history of IACUCs evolved from the history of regulation of animal welfare in the USA. Prior to 1963, regulation was conducted solely by investigators, and research laboratories had inconsistent animal care policies and standards of care. A group of veterinarians formed the Animal Care Panel and began work in 1961, and in 1963 they published the first edition of "The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals", referred to hereafter as the Guide. Subsequent editions of the Guide were supported by NIH and published by the Institute of Laboratory Animal Research branch of the National Academy of Science. Currently, the Guide is in its eighth edition.

An accreditation committee was formed in 1963, and it was independently incorporated from the ACP. Its name was AAALAC, the American Association for the Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care. In 1996 this committee changed its name to the "Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC)"

A series of reports on poor animal welfare in the US led to a major article in Life magazine in 1966. Public opinion was particularly galvanized by the case of a pet dog that was stolen from her owners in Pennsylvania and later died during an experimental surgery at a hospital in New York. Thus catalyzed, and spurred by the efforts of Representative Joseph Y. Resnick, Congress created the Animal Welfare Act (1966), which named the USDA the responsible agency. It inspected animal use facilities, but did not inspect or regulate individual laboratories.

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