Why use animals? UC Davis is one of the largest and most prestigious biological research facilities in the United States. With a College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, the California Regional Primate Research Center and a large number of academic departments, Davis has a very strong and diverse team of research scientists. Animals provide valuable models for studies ranging from the impact of environmental pollution to treatment of diseases and physical ailments. They also are an important part of training veterinary students. The UC Center for Animal Alternatives, established by the California Legislature in 1991 and located at UC Davis, has helped to reduce the number of animals used in teaching and research. It has encouraged the development and use of animal models, computer programs and other animal alternatives. How many and what kind? The campus houses approximately 200,000 animals during the course of a year. About half are fish, and most of the fish are larvae (the size of a guppy or smaller). Most of the rest are mice and rats; perhaps 30,000 mice and rats together are used in a typical year. Davis has thousands of farm animals, most of which live here year after year. The campus has a colony of about 3,500 primates, many of which live here for decades; approximately 200 primates per year are either sacrificed as part of a research project or are euthanized for health reasons. About 2,000 dogs and cats are used each year. Most are pound animals scheduled for euthanasia at the pound. These animals are used for teaching exercises by veterinary students; they are anesthetized and never regain consciousness, exactly as would happen at the pound. A few hundred cats and a smaller number of dogs are used in research projects. Oversight and regulations A campus Animal Care and Use Committee must approve each animal research project before it can be submitted to a funding agency. This review process is mandated by federal law. The committee must verify that the living conditions of the animals are appropriate for the species, that the use of pain-relieving drugs is adequate, and that the numbers of animals are the minimum necessary to complete the project. Studies at the California Regional Primate Research Center must pass three levels of review in order to be conducted. First, the primate center's own animal care committee reviews the proposed project to make certain that it is feasible, that the techniques are appropriate, and that the study justifies the use of the center's primates (most of which are bred for research on the center's grounds). If approved by the primate center's committee, the project must be reviewed by the campus's Animal Care and Use Committee. Finally, at the National Institutes of Health (or other funding agency), an expert committee of scientists called a "study section" reviews all the grant applications submitted to the agency and decides which ones are the best scientifically and which ones are the most important to human health in the United States. Targeted projects Animal activists have recently criticized these particular research projects at UC Davis: • Andrew G. Hendrickx, director of the California Regional Primate Research Center, studies the possible effects of drugs and nutrition on infants still in the mother's womb. Many beneficial, therapeutic drugs that may help treat an illness in an expectant mother can have a deleterious effect on a newborn. It's important for physicians to know which drugs may safely be given to pregnant women and which drugs are unsafe. Hendrickx's current research is aimed at defining safe levels of vitamin A. Vitamin A is often used as a dietary supplement by women of childbearing age, and has recently been reported to cause birth defects in newborns exposed during early pregnancy. Primates are uniquely suited to carry out these studies because of their very close similarities in prenatal development to the human. • William A. Mason, professor emeritus of psychology, performs non-invasive observational studies of primate behavior. His monkey studies involve a very brief separation of an infant from its parents to discover whether the infant responds equivalently in terms of behavior and physiology to a one-hour separation from its father and from its mother. His findings indicate a stronger response to separation from the father. He has also studied the responses of parents to a brief separation from their infant and from each other; both the father and mother show a much weaker response to a brief separation from their infant. The research's purpose is to explore family dynamics in a monogamous primate species. The research's outcome is not intuitively obvious, Mason notes. • Jonathan C. Horton, UC San Francisco associate professor of ophthalmology, neurology and physiology, is conducting research on primates to find better treatments for children who are blind from congenital cataracts or who are affected by strabismus -- misaligned or "crossed" eyes. His experiments have been approved by committees that monitor animal research at both UC Davis and UC San Francisco. Horton's work, which has been published in leading scientific literature, is supported by the National Institutes of Health. It has led to new approaches in treating blindness in children. Two percent of American children are affected by congenital cataracts or strabismus. • Leo M. Chalupa, professor of neurobiology, physiology and behavior, studies the growth and development of nerves. His work continues to provide new and important information about the formation of neuronal connections in the prenatal visual system. His research is supported by funds from the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health and is peformed in strict compliance with both NIH as well as campus regulations. • Marc P. Kaufman, professor of cardiovascular medicine, studies the neural mechanisms causing the cardiovascular and respiratory responses to exercise. These mechanisms, in pathological conditions, have the potential to cause asthma and cardiac fibrillation. The former is a condition in which the airways narrow, making it difficult to breathe, and the latter is a condition in which the heart is not able to pump blood. Both conditions can lead to death. Kaufman's research is funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and is done in a manner in which the animals experience no pain or discomfort. • Ronald Y. Chuang, professor of pharmacology and toxicology, is currently studying the effect of morphine on the progression of AIDS (a cellular immune disorder found in patients infected by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus) at the cellular level, using cell cultures grown in flasks. Since 1994, he has not used experimental monkeys subjected to morphine addiction, as alternatives to direct animal involvement have been explored. AIDS is now the leading cause of death among Americans ages 25 to 44, and intravenous drug use is the second leading cause of new AIDS cases through mid-1994. Studies show that needle-exchange alone does not account for the high incidence of AIDS among IV drug users, requiring a biological explanation for the high correlation between HIV and drug abuse. History of UC Davis animal activist protests Each April's World Laboratory Animal Liberation Week has typically been observed with protest rallies, graffitied sidewalks and buildings, acts of civil disobedience, and vandalized campus vehicles. But the country's most costly destructive act by animal rights activists occurred at UC Davis in 1987 -- a $4.6 million arson fire at the campus's John E. Thurman Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Although the letters ALF (Animal Liberation Front) were found painted inside that burned laboratory, no one was ever prosecuted for the fire, due to the lack of evidence. The building was eventually completed and now provides diagnostic services and information to help control animal diseases. The ALF also claimed responsibility for a March 18 arson fire at the site of the partially constructed Center for Comparative Medicine, west of the main Davis campus. Damage, estimated at under $1,000, was confined to an area about 10 feet square. Originally scheduled for completion in 1998, the $10.3 million center is being built so that veterinary and human medicine researchers can combine forces to study serious viral diseases that afflict humans and animals. Research at the new facility will be targeted at prevention and control of such major ailments as AIDS, herpes, virus diseases, measles, leukemia and other types of cancer.