Ch. 3— Patterns of Animal Use • 49 
was filed for 1983. This probably excludes a 
substantial number of animals since the fis- 
cal year 1984 annual report for NCTR reported 
the use of 8 dogs, 334 rabbits, 29 primates, 
14,621 rats, and 11,744 mice. 
• The VA has 81 facilities accredited by the 
American Association for Accreditation of 
Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) yet only 
63 reports were filed for 1983. Therefore, 
there is a strong possibility that the numbers 
for the VA are underreported. 
Bearing in mind all the limitations and qualifica- 
tions of the data used to generate table 3-1, OTA 
estimates that a minimum of 1.6 million ani- 
mals are used annually by the Federal Gov- 
ernment in intramural research. The Depart- 
ment of Defense, the Department of Health 
and Human Services, and the Veterans’ Ad- 
ministration together account for 96 percent 
of reported Federal animal use. DHHS alone 
reported 49 percent of the total. 
Among the six kind of animals whose inclusion 
in annual reporting forms is mandated by the Ani- 
mal Welfare Act, guinea pigs are used most often— 
twice as frequently as hamsters or rabbits (the sec- 
ond and third most used species). Overall, about 
the same number of dogs and primates are used, 
while far fewer cats are involved in Government 
experiments. Finally, table 3-1 suggests that cer- 
tain agencies do research on specific species. For 
example, the VA uses a disproportionately large 
number of dogs and the Department of the Interior 
is the major user of wild animals. 
Reports of Federal facilities indicate that most 
animal use falls into the experimental situation 
categorized as involving no pain or distress. Sixty- 
three percent of the animals used were in this cat- 
egory while 32 percent were given drugs to avoid 
pain or distress and only 5 percent experienced 
pain or distress without receiving anesthetics, anal- 
gesics, or tranquilizers. The largest user of drugs 
in experiments was the VA (62 percent of the ani- 
ANIMAL USE IN 1 
OTA surveyed the available data concerning the 
numbers of laboratory animals used for research, 
testing, and education. These were summarized, 
mals in this category), whereas the largest user 
of animals experiencing pain or distress was the 
Department of Defense (84 percent of the animals 
in this category). The latter figure may be inflated, 
however, by the fact that DOD has reported mice 
and rats voluntarily under these categories in many 
cases and has listed in this column all animals dy- 
ing in infectious and neoplastic disease studies, 
which many Federal agencies may not do (43). 
Table 3-2 shows the trends in animal use for Fed- 
eral agencies as a group from 1978 to 1983, accord- 
ing to the Animal Welfare Enforcement Reports 
submitted by APHIS to Congress (49). As with the 
numbers from the 1983 Annual Reports of Re- 
search Facilities, these data do not tell the whole 
story. Most important, these data do not include 
rats and mice, which together make up a majority 
of the animals used. Second, only reports that have 
been received by December 31 each year (the re- 
ports are due December 1) are included (26). It 
has been estimated that between 10 percent and 
20 percent of the total reporting institutions fail 
to report by December 31 and are therefore not 
included in the Animal Welfare Enforcement Re- 
ports (17). (Thus, the 1983 data are lower in table 
3-2 than in 3-1, which included all available an- 
nual reports.) 
The data are difficult to interpret due to the dif- 
ferent numbers of research facilities included each 
year. Therefore, no conclusions can be drawn 
about whether the trend in animal use is increas- 
ing or decreasing. This is also the case for trends 
in the use of individual species. The 1983 data do 
indicate, however, that no more than 8 percent 
of animals used in Federal programs reported here 
have experienced pain or distress in an experiment 
since 1978. The percentage of animals experienc- 
ing no pain or distress has remained between 50 
and 60 percent, while drugs have been used to 
alleviate pain or distress for 30 to 40 percent of 
the animals. 
5 UNITED STATES 
corrected for methodological deficiencies, and 
evaluated for their statistical reliability. As a final 
step, estimates were made of current levels of an- 
