Searching the Literature for Animal Testing Alternatives

Introduction

Why do a literature search?

There are several good reasons for searching for animal testing alternatives to your experimental procedure. You may discover that certain parts of your research have already been completed by other laboratories, making running a duplicate experiment unnecessary. You may find alternative methods of animal care and treatment that ensure purer results on experiments, require fewer specimens or less expensive ones, and take less time to complete. In other words, a literature search can unearth experimental protocols that save time and money while perfecting research results.

Another strong reason for performing a literature search is that it is the law. Under Section 2.31 of the Animal Welfare Act, the principal investigator on a research project must ensure that alternatives to painful procedures have been examined. Policy 12 of the Animal Care Resource Guide (maintained by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the US Department of Agriculture) clarifies the AWA provisions by outlining the requirements of literature search results, including the presence of a written narrative containing, at a minimum, the names of databases searched, the dates on which searches were performed, the timespan covered by the search, and the keywords and/or search strategies used.