ETHICS AND BIOETHICS, THE CURRENT TREND IN BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

SUMMARY

The number of animals used in research has increased with the advancement of research and development in recent time. The pain, distress and death experienced by these animals during scientific experiments have been a debating issue for a longtime. Argument is that being alive, animals have the rights against pain and distress and hence, their use for experimentation is unethical and must be stopped. Besides the major concern of ethics, there are few more disadvantages of animal experimentation, like requirement of skilled manpower, time consuming protocols and high cost. These ethical problems have spurred the development of bioethics standard, as well as various laws and acts, such as The Animal Research Act, which have been passed to bring under control the unethical use of animals during experimentation. To avoid these ethical problems, alternative methods to animal research and testing were proposed and are now in use, coupled with the use of alternative organisms (majorly, lower vertebrates and invertebrates), such as: Escherichia coli, Danio rerio, Drosophilia melanogaster, which are of less ethical concern, are now in use to avoid these unethical procedures. More also, a strategy of 3 Rs (i.e. reduction, refinement and replacement) is being applied for laboratory use of animals. A comprehensive account of these alternatives is discussed in this presentation. An integrated application of these approaches would give an insight into minimum use of animals in scientific experimentation.