ETHICAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS OF IN VIVO EXPERIMENTAL BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH: Part I

Abstract

In XXI century in vivo experiments came into a common use in connection with development of biological and medical scientific fields. In the first part of the work historical and technical aspects of use of animals in in vivo experiments are considered. In the work the problem of choice of a kind of laboratory animal for experimental purposes is discussed, and also the number of animals in the experimental groups is substantiated for further statistical processing of the primary information and determination of the reliability of differences in interpretation of the obtained results. According to the data of analyzed literature sources, modern researchers keep to the non-violence strategy and ahimsa principle (from Lat. ahimsᾱ – causing no harm). Here, the dominating point of view is the necessity for in vivo experiments for further development of the biomedical science. This is possible provided suffering of animals are minimized with their minimal number in an experiment. The choice of the animal species first of all depends on the task faced by an experimenter. Besides, in each research a thorough choice of a specific animal is required based on the information of its health, maintenance and feeding, anatomical and physiological peculiarities, age, genetic characteristics. Chronic and acute surgical experiments are usually conducted on large vertebrate animals: Dogs, European rabbits, house cats, while the action and effectiveness of pharmacological drugs are more conveniently studied on small laboratory animals: House mice, common rats, guinea-pigs, golden hamsters.