New ezine to help ensure regulatory and ethical compliance in research involving lab animals

A new, free weekly ezine, Lab Animal e-Alert, helps scientists whose research involves lab animals assure regulatory and ethical compliance in their use. Its format is a reader question followed by an answer from an expert.

Millions of smaller animals (mice, rats, rabbits) and large numbers of other lab animals are employed in research annually in the USA and other countries. However, their maintenance and use are heavily governed by Federal, state, institutional, and professional society rules and regulations.

Principal investigators (PIs) are the lead scientists responsible for operating the individual laboratories where the research experiments are carried out, so they are the researchers closest to the actual experimental use of the lab animals.

Lab Animal e-Alert is focused on disseminating and interpreting the regulatory and ethical requirements applicable to lab animals. Thus, it will not cover such other worthwhile animal subjects as breeding techniques, surgical technicalities, lab animal parasites, etc.

In addition to PIs, other scientists who will find the ezine helpful are members of each facility's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), Veterinarian(s) and the Institutional Official--the latter warrants to Government and other research funders that the facility is adhering to animal rules and regulations.

The inaugural issue of the ezine features an animal behavioral expert's advice on dealing with a lab technician who "swatted" a lab animal after becoming upset when the creature bit him.