IACUC.org is now IACUC Central, a comprehensive repository for all things IACUC. IACUC Central is a valuable resource for institutional animal care and use committee members and staff. Updated quarterly, IACUC Central organizes information into pages containing links to governmental agencies, databases, examples of institutional websites, training resources, and more.
NEWS
PREPARE and ARRIVE Guidelines
Workshops
IACUC Administrators Best Practices Meeting
- August 13-14; Grand Canyon, AZ
- November 6-7; Knoxville, TN
Interagency Collaborative Animal Research Education (ICARE) Project
- ICARE Academy - Training for IACUC members, staff, and institutional animal program personnel on meeting responsibilities for animal welfare oversight
- September 10–11, 2019; Alexandria, Virginia
- ICARE Project - Training Modules
Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) - IACUC 101 Series - Workshops provide information about the role and responsibilities of an IACUC and federal policies and regulations governing the welfare of animals in laboratories. The program includes scenarios at each level so that participants can practice what they have learned in each course. See the schedule for dates and locations.
- June 26–27, 2019; Providence, Rhode Island
- August 21–22, 2019; Bloomington, Minnesota
- November 6–8, 2019; Houston, Texas
Scientists Center for Animal Welfare - SCAW IACUC Training Workshops
- September 27, 2019; New York, New York
- November 22, 2019; Chicago, Illinois
USDA: Animal Welfare Information Center - Meeting the Information Requirements of the Animal Welfare Act
- October 2–3, 2019; Beltsville, Maryland
Conferences
PRIM&R - 2020 IACUC Conference
- April 6-7, 2020; Orlando, Florida
Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW) - SCAW Winter Conference - Sessions will provide key findings and advances in research animal welfare, explore policy and management issues related to IACUCs, and develop awareness of humane care and use of agricultural animals in research.
- December 9–10, 2019; San Antonio, Texas
- December 7–8, 2020; San Antonio, Texas
AVMA Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals
Funded through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the AVMA Panel on Depopulation and its working groups drafted the AVMA Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals and released them in April 2019. The guidelines are intended to help members of the veterinary profession make decisions that support animal welfare when the decision to depopulate has been made. The Panel encourages advanced planning for a possible emergency situation, such as a natural disaster, a hazardous zoonotic disease outbreak, terrorist activity, or a radiological incident. View the PDF.
Codes of Practice
In cooperation with the National Committee for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes (NCad) and the Dutch Animal Welfare Body Platform, the 3Rs-Centre ULS has published a collection of Codes of Practice (CoP's) in the field of laboratory animal science and welcomes other CoP's to be added to the inventory.
Disaster Resilience
"Strengthening the Disaster Resilience of the Academic Biomedical Research Community"
- A published report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM)
- How the academic biomedical research community can take action to mitigate the impact of future disasters
- Report available from:
- Webinar
Reduction of Regulatory Burden
21st Century Cures Act: NIH, USDA, and FDA are conducting a review of applicable regulations and policies for the care and use of laboratory animals and will make revisions, as appropriate, to reduce administrative burden on investigators.
USDA News
Improving the Relationship with Attending Veterinarians
The USDA has posted a brief video message from Bernadette Juarez, the Deputy Administrator for the Animal Care program, regarding an initiative to improve the relationship with the attending veterinarian community and a webpage with resources for them.
Recognition of Third-Party Inspections
USDA Animal Care: The USDA recently considered recognizing animal welfare inspections by third-party accrediting organizations, such as AAALAC, in order to focus on increasing the frequency of visits to research facilities with known compliance issues. In January 2018, the USDA invited the public to submit written comments on this idea. They received over 35,500 comments; the majority who responded were against the proposal due to concern over the agency's ability to maintain responsibility for inspections and compliance with the Animal Welfare Act. The USDA has ruled out third-party inspections, but does plan to use a risk-based inspection system to determine how often a facility is inspected and the use of "announced inspections."
Statistics
In April 2017, the USDA released Animal Welfare inspection reports conducted between January 10 and March 24, 2017 that had been restricted to the public since February 3, 2017 but in a redacted, less user-friendly form. On March, 21, 2018, Congress released a report telling the USDA to make the database more transparent and complete. For more information read this article in Science.
Tech Notes
In December 2017, the USDA released two publications to support their USDA Animal Care Strategic Plan for 2016-2020. These publications are for Animal Welfare Act licensees and registrants and are guidance documents called Tech Notes. The first Tech Note describes a new incentive program to recognize those who monitor activities and take appropriate action to address compliance issues. The second Tech Note provides information on daily health assessments of the animals.
2017 Accomplishments
USDA Animal Care increased it's focus on customer service and efficiency in 2017 and to highlight their accomplishments, they have published an accomplishment report (PDF) and a poster (PDF) to share the postive results of their efforts. USDA APHIS recently posted the Annual Report Animal Usage by Fiscal Year, 2017 (PDF). A summary analysis of the 2016 data was provided by Speaking of Research.
