Ch. 1 —Summary, Policy Issues, and Options for Congressional Action • 29 
striction. It would undeniably provide great impe- 
tus towards implementing alternatives. Indeed, the 
alternatives of reduction and refinement of ani- 
mal use would be immediately and completely 
achieved. However, the development of many re- 
placements to animal use depends itself on ani- 
mals. A ban would, for example, eliminate the use 
of organ cultures, nonhuman tissue cultures, and 
cell cultures, except for those self-perpetuating 
ones already in existence. Replacements would 
have to be drawn from among human and veteri- 
nary patients, micro-organisms, plants, chemical 
and physical systems, and simulations of living sys- 
tems. The development of new computer simula- 
tions would falter, with new data from animal sys- 
tems being unavailable. The ability to verify new 
simulations or proposed replacements would also 
come to a halt. 
Implementation of this option would effectively 
arrest most basic biomedical and behavioral re- 
search and toxicological testing in the United States . 
Education would be affected, too, although per- 
haps not as severely as research and testing. In 
the advanced life sciences and in medical and 
veterinary training, students might be handi- 
capped, although not to as great a degree as once 
thought. Some medical schools today, for exam- 
ple, use no animals in physiology curricula (see 
ch. 9). 
The economic and public health consequences 
of a ban on animal use are so unpredictable and 
speculative that this course of action must be con- 
sidered dangerous. Caution would demand, for 
example, that any new products or processes have 
substantial advantages over available ones to merit 
the risk of using them without animal testing. 
ISSUE: Should more accurate data be obtained 
on the kinds and numbers of animals 
used in research, testing, and education? 
Accurate data on the kinds and numbers of ani- 
mals used in research, testing, and education in 
the United States do not exist (see chs. 3 and 9). 
The best numbers now available on the use of cer- 
tain species (nonhuman primates, dogs, cats, rab- 
bits, guinea pigs, and hamsters) are produced by 
the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of 
the USDA. The APHIS Animal Welfare Enforce- 
ment Report submitted to Congress each year is 
best viewed as a rough estimate of animal use. It 
records approximately 10 percent of all animals 
used annually; omitted are rats, mice, birds, fish, 
reptiles, and amphibians. 
Estimates of animals used yearly in the United 
States range to 100 million and more. Although 
the development and implementation of alterna- 
tives do not require an accurate count, public pol- 
icy formation would be helped by better data . Reg- 
ulating animal use, for example, or funding the 
development or validation of alternatives to a par- 
ticular procedure, may depend on how many ani- 
mals are used and what fraction of the total this 
i epresents. Trends in animal use have similar ap- 
plications. In the United Kingdom, the exact ani- 
mal use records kept since 1876 have influenced 
policymakers (see ch. 16). 
Some animal welfare advocates suggest that the 
moral and ethical issues surrounding animal use 
are independent of the precise number of animals 
used. Others question whether the value of the 
data obtained is worth the cost of obtaining ac- 
curate numbers. A rough estimate based on mini- 
mal data may be all that is necessary to put the 
relevant issues into context. Selecting among the 
following options will depend, therefore, on judg- 
ment of how important it is to know the number 
and kinds of animals used, who uses them, and 
what trends exist. 
Option 1: Take no action. 
The primary advantage of this option is that no 
additional funding would be required, since noth- 
ing within the system would change. Continued 
funding of current APHIS activities would keep 
yielding rough estimates of the use of six kinds 
of animals that account for about 10 percent of 
total animal use. 
The major disadvantage of maintaining the sta- 
tus quo is that an inaccurate and ambiguous report- 
ing system would be perpetuated, yielding mar- 
ginally useful analysis of animal use in the United 
States. The APHIS counting system is ineffective 
because of problems with ambiguous reporting 
forms and a failure to audit the forms that are 
returned. 
Funding for the APHIS survey has been derived 
from the approximately $5 million allocated an- 
nually in recent years to APHIS to enforce the Ani- 
mal Welfare Act. Depending on the uses to which 
