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      The ethical dimension in published animal research in critical care: the dark side of our moon

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      1 , 2 , , 2
      Critical Care
      BioMed Central

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          Abstract

          The replacement, refinement, and reduction (3Rs) guidelines are the cornerstone of animal welfare practice for medical research. Nowadays, no animal research can be performed without being approved by an animal ethics committee. Therefore, we should expect that any published article would respect and promote the highest standard of animal welfare. However, in the previous issue of Critical Care, Bara and Joffe reported an unexpected finding: animal welfare is extremely poorly reported in critical care research publications involving animal models. This may have a significant negative impact on the reliability of the results and on future funding for our research. The ability of septic shock animal models to translate into clinical studies has been a challenge. Therefore, every means to improve the quality of these models should be pursued. Animal welfare issues should be seen as an additional benefit to achieve this goal. It is therefore critical to draw conclusions from this study to improve the standard of animal welfare in critical care research. This has already been achieved in other fields of research, and we should follow their example.

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          Most cited references11

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          Animal models of sepsis: setting the stage.

          Sepsis is a state of disrupted inflammatory homeostasis that is often initiated by infection. The development and progression of sepsis is multi-factorial, and affects the cardiovascular, immunological and endocrine systems of the body. The complexity of sepsis makes the clinical study of sepsis and sepsis therapeutics difficult. Animal models have been developed in an effort to create reproducible systems for studying sepsis pathogenesis and preliminary testing of potential therapeutic agents. However, demonstrated benefit from a therapeutic agent in animal models has rarely been translated into success in human clinical trials. This review summarizes the common animal sepsis models and highlights how results of recent human clinical trials might affect their use.
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            Modeling sepsis in the laboratory: merging sound science with animal well-being.

            Despite impressive advances in biomedical research, few noteworthy breakthroughs have been made in the treatment of sepsis during the past several decades. This stalemate is primarily due to the intricate and heterogenic nature of the systemic immune responses characterized as the sepsis syndrome. In general, such complexity must be approached with in vivo models. Several animal models have been described, suggesting that none adequately address all of the pressing needs in sepsis research. The most clinically applicable models involve a localized infection, such as surgically induced polymicrobial sepsis, that gradually propagates a systemic immune response. Because relevant models must mimic a severe and chronic syndrome, animal well-being is often a concern in sepsis research. A balance between the needs of sepsis research and animal welfare can only be achieved through knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of and alternatives to in vivo sepsis models.
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              Guidelines on the recognition of pain, distress and discomfort in experimental animals and an hypothesis for assessment.

              Under the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act it is necessary to recognise pain so that an assessment may be made to determine if it is 'an experiment calculated to give pain' and 'to prevent the animal feeling pain'. Under the conditions of the licence it is also necessary to recognise 'severe pain which is likely to endure' and 'suffering considerable pain'. In the White Paper May 1983 (Command 8883) it is stated that: 'in the application of controls the concept of pain should be applied in a wide sense' and 'the Home Secretary's practice has been to interpret the concept of pain to include disease, other disturbances of normal health, adverse change in physiology, discomfort and distress'. The draft European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Purposes, aims to control, subject to specific exceptions, any experimental or other scientific procedure which 'may cause pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm'. (The White Paper states that UK control will be stricter than the Council of Europe proposals.) Thus, there is a considerable onus on the experimenter to recognise pain (not to define it) and to alleviate it. It is intended that this article should be of help, not only to newcomers inexperienced in the recognition of pain, but also possibly to those relatively experienced workers who may be called upon to evaluate the pain involved in a new model or an individual animal.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Crit Care
                Crit Care
                Critical Care
                BioMed Central
                1364-8535
                1466-609X
                2014
                13 March 2014
                13 March 2015
                : 18
                : 2
                : 120
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Intensive Care Unit, Alfred Hospital, 55 Commercial Road, Melbourne 3004, VIC, Australia
                [2 ]Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, 75 Commercial Road, Melbourne 3004, VIC, Australia
                Article
                cc13766
                10.1186/cc13766
                4035854
                24886758
                73c94091-8adb-451e-967a-8610365181cd
                Copyright © 2014 Huet and de Haan; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

                The licensee has exclusive rights to distribute this article, in any medium, for 6 months following its publication. After this time, the article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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                Emergency medicine & Trauma
                Emergency medicine & Trauma

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