Expectations for Methodology and Translation of Animal Research: A Survey of Health Care Workers

Nobis, Nathan, Morehouse College
Joffe, Ari R., University of Alberta
Bara, Meredith, University of Alberta
Anton, Natalie, University of Alberta

2015-05-07

2010-2019

BACKGROUND: Health care workers (HCW) often perform, promote, and advocate use of public funds for animal research (AR); therefore, an awareness of the empirical costs and benefits of animal research is an important issue for HCW. We aim to determine what health-care-workers consider should be acceptable standards of AR methodology and translation rate to humans. METHODS: After development and validation, an e-mail survey was sent to all pediatricians and pediatric intensive care unit nurses and respiratory-therapists (RTs) affiliated with a Canadian University. We presented questions about demographics, methodology of AR, and expectations from AR. Responses of pediatricians and nurses/RTs were compared using Chi-square, with P?<?.05 considered significant. RESULTS: Response rate was 44/114(39%) (pediatricians), and 69/120 (58%) (nurses/RTs). Asked about methodological quality, most respondents expect that: AR is done to high quality; costs and difficulty are not acceptable justifications for low quality; findings should be reproducible between laboratories and strains of the same species; and guidelines for AR funded with public money should be consistent with these expectations. Asked about benefits of AR, most thought that there are sometimes/often large benefits to humans from AR, and disagreed that AR rarely produces benefit to humans. Asked about expectations of translation to humans (of toxicity, carcinogenicity, teratogenicity, and treatment findings), most: expect translation >40% of the time; thought that misleading AR results should occur. CONCLUSIONS: HCW have high expectations for the methodological quality of, and the translation rate to humans of findings from AR. These expectations are higher than the empirical data show having been achieved. Unless these areas of AR significantly improve, HCW support of AR may be tenuous. KEYWORDS: Animal Models, Animal Research, Ethics Methodology, Bioethics and Medical Ethics, Ethics and Political Philosophy, Philosophy

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BMC Medical Ethics

Department of Philosophy

Morehouse College

http://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-015-0024-x

10.1186/s12910-015-0024-x

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/mc.ir.fac.pub:2015_nobis

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/