16 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
the approval of the Senate. Eligibility for the position of Commissioner would 
be limited to persons admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the 
United States. No person who had “ever been connected with any laboratory” 
could be eligible. 
Certificates of compliance, issued by the Commissioner, would be required 
for all agencies of the United States using any animals for research, experi- 
mentation, testing, or training in scientific procedures or techniques, or the 
production of medical or pharmaceutical material, and no agency of the United 
States could make any purchase from a laboratory unless the laboratory held a 
certificate of compliance. Furthermore, no grant or contract could be made by 
any Federal agency after January 1, 1962, to any laboratory or person using 
animals in research, etc., unless the laboratory held a certificate of compliance. 
Each holder of a certificate of compliance, with respect to any research, etc., 
involving the use of animals, would be required to file a project plan with the 
Agency for Laboratory Animal Control describing the nature and purpose of the 
project and the procedures to be used with respect to living animals. No use 
of animals could be undertaken until the project plan had been approved by the 
Commissioner. 
The bill would require that accurate records be maintained on all experiments 
and procedures performed, in such form as to make possible the identification 
of animals subjected to specified experiments and tests, and of the disposition 
of all animals. Annual reports would be required, specifying for each project 
plan previously filed the number and species of animals used, the procedures 
employed, the sources from which the animals were acquired, and “such mat- 
ters as the Commissioner may prescribe.” These annual reports would also be 
required to include a copy of any published work prepared or sponsored by the 
reporting person or laboratory involving the use of animals. 
The bill would also require every laboratory holding a certificate of compliance, 
and every agency of the United States using animals in research, etc., to com- 
ply with a requirement, among others, that experiments or tests on animals shall 
be conducted only by persons holding letters of qualification issued by the Com- 
missioner, or by students in a laboratory holding a certificate of compliance, when 
in the presence and under the direct supervision of a person holding a letter 
of qualification. Letters of qualification could be issued only to persons who 
had been awarded a doctoral degree in medicine, veterinary medicine, physiology, 
or zoological science by an accredited university or college. 
The bill would further require that regardless of the nature or purpose of any 
experiment or procedure, animals that would suffer prolonged pain or stress 
as a result of an experiment or procedure must be painlessly killed immediately 
after the procedure causing the pain or stress has been completed “whether or 
not the objective of the experiment or procedure has been attained,” and would 
require all animals used by students in practice surgery or other painful proce- 
dures to be under complete anesthesia and to be killed without being allowed to 
recover consciousness. Anesthetics would be required to be administered only by 
a licensed veterinarian or doctor of medicine qualified in anesthesiology, except 
that a student in a graduate medical school could do so for purposes of training 
when in the presence and under the immediate supervision of a licensed veteri- 
narian or doctor of medicine. 
No certificate -of compliance could be issued by the Commissioner unless the 
laboratory had agreed in writing that authorized representatives of the Com- 
missioner and law enforcement officers of the States in which the laboratory 
operates would be given access at any time to the animals, premises, and records 
of the laboratory. 
No Federal grant or payment under a grant or contract could be made to any 
laboratory whose certificate had been suspended or revoked by the Commissioner. 
In the case of noncompliance of a Federal agency, the Commissioner would notify 
the agency, and if the noncompliance were not corrected within 30 days of notifi- 
cation, the Commissioner would publish notice in the Federal Register and no 
funds could thereafter be used by the agency for experiments or tests involving 
the use of animals. 
We are in agreement with the principle that laboratory animals should receive 
humane treatment. In our opinion, however, the proposed system of Federal 
regulation based on the requirement of certificates and licenses is neither a 
desirable nor a feasible approach to the achievement of the stated objective of 
the bill, and furthermore could seriously impede and obstruct the successful 
conduct of research programs which utilize animals. 
