Ethical issues

The use of models and procedures with the potential for severe suffering raises specific ethical concerns..

The use of animals for scientific purposes raises ethical concerns. For some, all animal use in this context is ethically objectionable, whereas for others the degree of acceptance depends on the degree of pain, suffering and distress balanced against the benefit achieved by the knowledge generated. In this context, severe suffering is ethically challenging both because of the level of harm caused and the expectation for commensurately high benefit that should be delivered.

In this section, we will focus on the key ethical issues that severe suffering raises and the specific issue of the translational or predictive value of severe models and procedures.

Ethics Translational issues