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Articles and Reports The Animal Experimentation Scandal (2005 Updated Report): Audit Scope and Methodology This evaluation is based on searches of the CRISP system for 2003
using terms that describe 27 separate species of animals. Terms used to
examine small animal use include: mouse, rat, guinea pig, hamster,
gerbil and rabbit. Primate species names used include: macaca (Latin
species name for macaque monkeys), saimiri (Latin species name for
squirrel monkeys), baboon, chimpanzee, aotus, gibbon mangabey,
cercopithecidae, and callithricidae. However, there are at least 345
projects which contain the word primate but apparently do not specify a
species. These studies were purposely not counted due to lack of
specificity and also as a hedge to allow for some studies which could
contain the names of multiple species. Companion animal species examined
include: dog, cat, and ferret. “Farm” animals species examined include
cow, horse, sheep, pig, and goat Birds discussed include songbirds,
chickens, and pigeons. Other species which were not discussed include
chiroptera (bats), lizards, and fish. The tendency here has been to be conservative, and avoid overstating
the situation. Searches run on these terms will bring up a list of all funded grants
using these animals. This will not give us any information on specific
animal use numbers, but it should reveal the number of different
experiments that these government agencies fund which utilize these
species. This system will not yield a foolproof measure of animal experiments.
The results are from a limited number of government agencies including:
the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services (SAMHSA), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA),
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDCP), Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ),
and Office of Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH). This evaluation does
not cover any experiments within the National Science Foundation, the
United States Department of Agriculture, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, the Department of Defense, and many other governmental
agencies. This examination also ignores privately funded experiments.
This investigation is meant only to reveal trends in the most general
terms. However, there is no reason to believe that other entities,
whether public or private, are moving in any other direction. Funding estimates are derived by simply multiplying the number of
grants in a specific category or for a specific facility by the average
grant amounts published by the National Institutes of Health for the
relevant year. The only exception to this methodology is in reference to
eight research facilities. These eight laboratories (University of
Wisconsin, University of Washington, University of California – Davis,
Tulane, Emory, Harvard, Oregon Health Sciences University and the
Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research) publish the amount of
funding they receive for primate experimentation in a progress report.
The amount from this progress report has been substituted for the amount
that would have been derived by multiplying the primate species numbers
by the average grant amount. This report also contains statistics regarding the percentage of
grants for each facility which involves animal usage. This number was
obtained by dividing the number of animal oriented grants by the total
number of grants in the CRISP system for the facility in question. These
facilities comprise a representative sample of all research in the U.S.
because they account for 51% of all animal research grants in the U.S.
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