238 • Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing, and Education 
Other entities that could be considered for oper- 
ating a centralized registry of research and test- 
ing data include: 
• National Toxicology Program. NTP never 
had as its mission the development of a data 
bank, and it is not presently equipped to do 
so. The scope of NTP’s mission would have 
to be redefined if it were to undertake this 
responsibility. 
• National Bureau of Standards. Although 
NBS specializes in physical, chemical, and engi- 
neering databases, it has never been involved 
in a biological database operation. NBS does 
not appear to be a viable candidate. 
• National Agricultural Library (NAL). Unlike 
NLM, NAL has not developed any specialized 
computerized biological data registry systems. 
It does not appear to be a viable candidate for 
operating a centralized registry of research 
and testing data . The 1 985 amendments to the 
Animal Welfare Act (see ch. 13) directed NAL— 
in cooperation with NLM— to provide infor- 
mation that could prevent unintended dupli- 
cation of animal experimentation, and infor- 
mation on improved methods of animal exper- 
imentation. 
• Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology. 
Unless the chemical industry chose to increase 
funding to CUT for this express purpose, it 
could not support this activity. Also, CIIT lacks 
personnel experienced in large-scale database 
development and operation. 
• Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Associa- 
SUMMARY AND 
The sharing of information on research and test- 
ing is vital to scientific progress. There are a vari- 
ety of ways in which such information can be 
shared. 
Published materials, especially articles appear- 
ing in scientific journals, are an indispensable 
source of information on the results of completed 
research and testing. Unfortunately, a substantial 
body of information is not published, although 
some of it is publicly available. 
Publication is a means of establishing a reputa- 
tion in the scientific community . This is especially 
important to academics. For scientists in indus- 
try, however, the efforts required for publication 
tion(PMA). PMA is not independent of direc- 
tion by its members (as is CIIT, for example). 
Further, PMA is not engaged in large database 
efforts, making it an unlikely candidate. 
• Federation of American Societies for Ex- 
perimental Biology. FASEB has published 
handbooks of biological data and is currently 
embarked on a venture to extract some data 
from LADB files . However, because of limited 
resources for data-base development and op- 
eration, FASEB's most appropriate role might 
be as the coordinator of peer-review groups. 
• Chemical Abstracts Service of the Amer- 
ican Chemical Society, and BioSciences In- 
formation Services. Each of these services 
annually prepares hundreds of thousands of 
abstracts that report biological research and 
testing results. These files are document- 
oriented and indexed systematically. How- 
ever, the detail of the abstracts published does 
not begin to approximate the depth of infor- 
mation found even in LADB. Both services 
could conceivably undertake the development 
and operation of a computerized data regis- 
try, particularly with NLM supervision. 
In summary, it appears that virtually no exist- 
ing private or public entity, save the NLM, has the 
resources and expertise to design, develop, and 
maintain a computerized registry of research and 
testing data. If NLM were to undertake such a task, 
it would probably rely on contractors from the 
private and nonprofit sectors. 
CONCLUSIONS 
compete with other demands on resources, as well 
as with the need to keep information with some 
proprietary value confidential. 
Much data generated by the Government are 
published. Yet, when an agency's mission is regu- 
latory, less attention is given to publication than 
to other concerns. 
Because of the importance of journals, their pub- 
lication policies have a great impact on the kinds 
of information available. The most troublesome 
policy is the tendency to publish only results that 
show an effect. Thus, protocols that yield nega- 
tive results may be unintentionally duplicated in 
subsequent experiments. 
