82 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
ning were needlessly inhumane, he would take the trouble to devise a 
more humane method. If he knows his license might be suspended or 
even revoked for failure to comply with the humane requirements of 
the law, he would take the trouble to see that his animals were decent- 
ly cared for and not abused. Other proponents of this legislation 
will, no doubt, emphasize the waste of funds that is a concomitant 
of the irresponsible attitude with respect to animals which is so 
widely seen in laboratories today, so I will merely point out that 
while the cost of administering H.R. 1937 would not be great, the 
amount of taxpayers’ funds it would save would be very large in- 
deed. And in saving these funds it would simultaneously be saving 
something much more important — a thing which it is essential to save 
if we are to call ourselves civilized — that is, needless suffering of 
animals being used for our benefit to protect us against the sickness 
and annihilation that we fear. 
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 
(The complete prepared statement of Mrs. Stevens is as follows:) 
Testimony in Favor of H.R. 1937 and S. 3088 for the Humane Treatment of 
Experimental Animals by Christine Stevens, President, Animal Welfare 
Institute, New York 
For the past decade the Animal Welfare Institute has devoted the major part 
of its resources to studying the treatment of experimental animals in this country 
and to improving that treatment by the means now available. In the course of 
this effort, we have visited scientific institutions throughout the Nation and 
have provided advice and information to thousands of scientists, administrators, 
and technicians. For example, more than 17,000 copies of this manual, “Basic 
Care of Experimental Animals,” have been requested from us by institutions 
in 48 States and 43 foreign countries, and we have provided them in all cases 
free of charge in an eflort to help animals and science. 
Here is another manual provided by the Animal Welfare Institute free to 
scientific institutions which are planning new animal quarters or remodeling 
old ones. It is entitled “Comfortable Quarters for Laboratory Animals.” 
Architects’ floor plans and photographs of existing good quarters are collected 
together, and new supplements are brought out to keep this publication — the only 
existing one of its kind — up to date. We put these together by hand with the 
help of volunteer workers, and are just now completing the filling of requests 
from over 600 laboratories as a result of the new supplement. We provide at 
cost the film, “Handling Laboratory Animals,” and the 951-page text, “The 
UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory Animals,” pub- 
lished by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, “An Introduction to 
the Anesthesia of Laboratory Animals,” by Dr. Phyllis Croft, and until recently, 
“The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique,” by Russell and Burch. 
We send our bimonthly information reports to all the 7,000 members of the 
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and to many other 
scientists and medical men. We have provided speakers (for example, an expert 
on animal technician training) and specific advice on request. In short, our 
educational effort has been arduous and continuous, and we often find the 
materials we distribute in evidence in the course of laboratory visits. 
Why, then, since our educational work in animal care seems to have had such 
an encouraging reception from scientists do we urge enactment of mandatory 
Federal laws to require humane treatment of these animals? The answer is 
simple : Our inspections of the actual animals in laboratories and examination of 
published literature on their use reveals great cruelty, callousness, and neglect in 
laboratory after laboratory throughout our Nation. Further, it has been dis- 
appointing to find that a rational and courteous approach to obtaining decent 
treatment of animals so often fails, whereas on those occasions in which adverse 
publicity was brought to bear, the need changes were made. This is disappoint- 
ing because we would all like to believe the claims, so often put forward by 
opponents of H.R. 1937, of unfailing wisdom, kindliness, and responsibility of 
laboratory directors with respect to the animals in their institutions. It is 
regrettable that we cannot simply put our trust, as the opponents urge us to do, 
