Ch. 13— Federal Regulation of Animal Use • 289 
Table 13-3.— Licensing, Registration, and Reporting Activity of Registered Research Facilities 
Under the Animal Welfare Act, Fiscal Years 1978-83 
1978 
1979 
1980 
1981 
1982 
1983 
Total licensees/registrants 
6,902 
6,389 
6,585 
6,492 
6,297 
6,447 
Licensed dealers 
4,501 
3,982 
3,886 
3,664 
3,439 
3,490 
Exhibitors: 
Licensed 
924 
978 
1,101 
1,168 
1,237 
1,266 
Registered 
313 
239 
170 
130 
106 
101 
Intermediate handlers/carriers 
66 
139 
274 
312 
339 
346 
Registered Research Facilities (RRFs): 
Active 
1,057 
1,051 
1,092 
1,169 
1,113 
1,166 
Inactive 3 
35 
— 
62 
49 
63 
78 
New RRFs added 
— 
— 
71 
— 
43 
70 
RRFs as proportion of total (percent) 
16 
17 
18 
19 
19 
19 
Reports received from RRFs b 
1,092 
NA 
1,061 
1,111 
968 
1,127 
Active 
1,072 
1,061 
857 
919 
885 
1,005 
Negative 0 
— 
169 
138 
143 
73 
73 
Late or no report filed d 
20 
NA 
66 
49 e 
10 
49 
a Means no reported use of regulated animals for two consecutive years. 
b Excludes reports from Federal facilities. 
c Means no use of regulated animals during reporting year. 
d Means no Annual Report received by December 1 of reporting year for inclusion in APHIS’ Animal Welfare Enforcement Report to Congress for that year. 
e Last reporting year for which late or no filings could be calculated from information given in Annual Animal Welfare Enforcement Report. Later figures supplied by APHIS. 
NA = Not available. 
SOURCE: Office of Technology Assessment. 
established deadline for annual enforcement re- 
ports, or some combination of all these factors. 
The method used by APHIS for monitoring com- 
pliance with the act’s and its own standards is 
“regular, unannounced” inspections of licensee and 
registrant premises. For research facilities, the 
most important standard is that adequate veteri- 
nary care or, more particularly, “professionally 
acceptable standards” of relief of pain and distress 
are observed during and after experimentation, 
except where administration of anesthetics or pain 
relievers would interfere with the purpose of the 
experiment. Major inspections are characterized 
as: 
• recurring compliance inspections; per- 
formed to "spot -check” active licensees and 
registrants for continued compliance with 
established standards; 
• inspections to investigate complaints of 
noncompliance or substandard treatment; 
• status searches; undertaken to determine 
whether a business (principally potential 
dealers) should be licensed; and 
• inspections to investigate apparent viola- 
tions that have come to the attention of in- 
spectors (43). 
Though a multi-sited facility may be required 
to register only as a single entity, obviously all sites 
where covered animals are held must be inspected 
on a regular basis if standards are to be enforced 
adequately. The precise number of sites of animal 
use in experimentation in the United States is un- 
known; it likely falls between 5,000 and 10,000. 
In 1985, GAO completed a study for the Chair- 
man of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural 
Development and Related Agencies, Senate Com- 
mittee on Appropriations, on USDA activities un- 
der the Animal Welfare Act. GAO focused on: 
• the training and guidance given to USDA ’s in- 
spectors; 
• how USDA schedules its inspections of licen- 
sees and registrants and the frequency of 
those inspections; and 
• the followup action USDA takes when inspec- 
tors find unsatisfactory conditions (32). 
GAO reviewed animal welfare inspection activi- 
ties at the APHIS area offices in California, Iowa, 
Kansas, Missouri, New York, and Texas. These 
offices accounted for 45 percent of the 19,473 re- 
curring compliance inspections made in fiscal year 
1982. 
