DOD Animal Research

In analyzing 24 Department of Defense (DOD) projects on biological defense, combat casualty care, and radiation research, GAO found that DOD's controls over the use of nonhuman primates, cats, dogs, and farm animals were generally effective but needed some improvements. DOD employed measures to avoid or minimize unnecessary duplication, requiring investigators to conduct and document literature searches and submit project proposals for scientific and animal use reviews. DOD needs to clarify its requirement that investigators search particular databases of ongoing research to ensure that searches are consistently implemented. DOD investigators could have used additional alternatives to refine experimental procedures in 8 of the 24 projects. Routine pain relief could have been administered in five studies of burn treatments without compromising the objectives. Animals could have been euthanized earlier than the investigators proposed without affecting research results. However, records did not document the alternatives that were considered but not adopted. GAO made recommendations to reduce the likelihood that proposed research unnecessarily duplicates other research and to improve the consideration of refinement alternatives.

GAO noted that: (1) DOD's controls over animal use were generally effective, but some improvements are needed to further ensure that animals are used appropriately; (2) GAO was able to link all but one of the 805 animal use projects in fiscal year 1996 to a military objective or a congressionally directed program; (3) about half the projects were directed toward military research objectives that evolved from formal DOD planning processes, while about 35 percent supported DOD missions such as medical training and education; (4) another 15 percent did not address a direct military need but were part of congressionally directed programs such as breast cancer research; (5) many of the projects that addressed military objectives also had civilian applications such as emergency medicine; (6) GAO did not identify any unnecessary duplication in the 24 research projects it reviewed; (7) DOD employed measures to avoid or minimize unnecessary duplication; (8) these measures included requiring investigators to conduct and document literature searches and submit project proposals for scientific and animal use reviews; (9) although the inherent limitations of any literature search constrain DOD's ability to identify and avoid unnecessary duplication, DOD needs to clarify its requirement that investigators search particular databases of ongoing research to ensure that searches are consistently implemented; (10) although DOD considered and incorporated alternatives to replace and reduce the use of animals in the 24 research projects GAO reviewed, investigators could have used additional alternatives to refine experimental procedures in 8 of them; (11) these refinements could have improved the welfare of the animals without compromising the projects' objectives; (12) for example, routine pain relief could have been administered in five studies of burn treatments; (13) in two other studies, animals could have been euthanized earlier than the investigators proposed without affecting research results; and (14) however, GAO was unable to determine the extent to which refinement alternatives were considered in the development and review of these protocols because records did not document the alternatives that were considered and not adopted.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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