Severe models and procedures
Some procedures are more likely to be severe than others. Examples include control groups in some vaccine studies, or some 'models' of diseases or conditions that cause high levels of suffering in clinical cases. Some examples of potentially severe procedures are listed on pages 8 to 9 of the European Commission report (PDF 192KB) on prospective severity classification. Further examples are listed below, on the basis of the scientific literature and discussions with researchers, animal technologists and veterinarians working in academia and industry in the UK.
These are listed as guidance only; their actual severity will depend upon individual experimental protocols and the efforts that have been made to refine these.
Examples of potentially severe procedures
- Severe cancer models - involving large tumours, resection, bone metastasis, brain tumours, pancreatic tumours
- Irradiation with reconstitution of bone marrow
- Some heart disease models: myocardial infarction induction; Monocrotaline-induced PAH; transverse aortic constriction/banding
- Spinal cord injury models
- Infectious disease models
- Tamoxifen as inducers of gene function
- Vaccine testing for regulatory purposes
- Toxicology / ecotoxicology protocols involving many species
- Models of Motor Neuron Disease
- Cerebral malaria in rodents
- Multi-organ failure models
- Pancreatitis models
- Demyelination of CNS