by Bryan Grimmelt

Many of the important issues on the use of Labora- tory animals in Canada were explored at the Fall Sympo- of Atlantic Provinces Interuniversity Council held at the Atlantic Veterinary College on November 14/87.

The organizer of the Dr. J. Amend, said “the most important thing is to keep everybody fully con- scious of how acutely’ aware

sium

event,

we have to be of the quality of animal care”.

In Canada just under two million animals a year are used in testing and re- search.

de-

scribed the structure, func-

Dean Thomson tions, and curriculum of the Atlantic Veterinary College to begin the Symposium. Dr. Fred Markham, Associate professor of Im- munology at A.V.C. opened the sion on the use of fish in re- “T suspect that the

sessions with a discus- search. interest in using fish as re- search animals will increase as time goes on” Markham said. Fish are presently the third most common animal, behind rats and mice, used in laboratory research.

The reasons for the in- creased use of fish in research are “because they are there” (a basic motivation for all science), because they are very useful “to detect and assess the effects of pollu- tants” and because of the in- creased interest in Aquacul- ture, Markham said.

Fish are being used in bioengineering studies in- cluding transfer of specific genes into salmon eggs.

Dr. Rick Cawthorn, Associate Professor of Par- asitology at A.V.C., fol- lowed up with a very in- teresting seminar on some of the common parasitic or-

ganisms which are trans- mitted between animals and man. Cryptosporiodosis is

one of the major diseases which kills immunocompro- mised individuals including AIDS Cawthorn said. This

common in

patients,

organism is very

calves, lambs,

goats, and companion an-

imals and is often passed from people to people in day- cares, bars, by sexual prac- tices, as well as from con- taminated food Two other common diseases transmitted from animals to man,Toxoplasmosis and Gia- rdiasis( Travellers Diarrhea), were discussed. The spread of all these organisms is “easy enough to control with education and Hygiene”, (in- cluding boiling your drink- ing water when in strange

places) Cawthorn said.

and water.

The presentation by Dr. Carolyn Runyon, Associate professor of Orthopedics at

A.V.C., on reintroducing the river otter into Iowa, was a refreshing description of how scientific knowledge, prop- erly applied, can work with nature.

Dr. Andy Tasker, As- sistant Professor of Pharma- cology at A.V.C., discussion on “Pain and Stress in an- imal research” brought into focus the “nebulous concept”

“We tend to ap- ply our own stan- dards to animal populations both for what we consider innocuous and harmless’. and

what we experience as pain”

that what_is upsetting to a human is upsetting to an an- imal. “We tend to, as hu- mans...apply our own stan- dards to animal populations both for what we consider innocuous and harmless and what we experience as pain”, Tasker said.

Where a _ hysterectomy results in extreme and ex- tended pain in humans possi- bly due to tremendous emo- tional overlay, in dogs and cats the use of anesthetics is felt to be more stress- ful than the pain associated with the operation because of the clouding of sensory functions.

We cannot extropolate

‘human behavior in periods of

pain and stress to animals, Tasker said. Rats, the most common animal used in re- search, will curl up and be- come almost cataleptic when

under severe stress. This anxiety is easily overlooked by people unfamiliar with this aspect of rat behavior, Tasker said adding “We as researchers. define levels .of pain and stress that are spe- cific to each species, not only for political purposes, but for purposes of personal and sci- entific integrity.”

Dr. Bill Rapley, Director of Animal care-at the Univer- sity of Western Ontario, fol- lowed with a talk on “Bioeth- ical Considerations for the Animal Research Facility”. Since the University of West- ern Ontario has been the primary target for animal rights groups, Rapley finds

his position to be “jammed in the middle and every- body is coming from all di- rections”. ‘Animal rights groups send me hate mail” Rapley said.

He pointed out that de- fence of the need of animal research is a difficult area be- cause the media is very hun- gry for sensationalist stories which animal rights groups rely on and where distortions are easy and common. 3

In the extremist Animal liberation groups the “major players are few and very vo- cal, the number of truly fa- natical people is very lim- ited” Rapley said. Every-