DOD animal research : improvements needed in quality of biomedical research database : report to Congressional committees / United States General Accounting Office.
- United States. General Accounting Office
- Date:
- 1998
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: DOD animal research : improvements needed in quality of biomedical research database : report to Congressional committees / United States General Accounting Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.
13/18 page 11
![Appendix I Comments From the Department of Defense RECOMMENDATION 1: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense take steps to improve the biomedical] research database (BRD). The GAO specifically recommended the Secretary improve data collection and reporting procedures to ensure that the BRD contains accurate, detailed information about individual animal research projects, including information on the number and species of animals used in each project, the research goal and justification, and the pain categories for each project as identified in House Report 103-499. (pp. 8-9/Draft Now on p. 5. Report) DOD RESPONSE: Partially concur. DOD has complied with congressional requests for timeliness and detail for the animal use reporting. The DoD does not have an existing capability to specifically report information on the number and species of animals used in each project, the research goal and justification, and pain categories for each project because projects can span several years. Further, the number of animal subjects will vary during the course of an experiment, and is dependent upon the experiment outcome. To implement such a system would require an extensive upgrade to the existing BRD software and hardware capacity. While not currently being able to report specific projects, the DOD is taking additional steps to improve the Biomedical Research Database (BRID) and reporting procedures. Steps to improve the database and reporting include the following: . 1. Training. Information reported in the database is only as good as the data submitted, collected and collated. By December 1, 1998, the DOD will provide training to the essential cadre of Laboratory Animal Veterinarians responsible for data entry and maintenance of the BRD. 2. Provide Additional Information. For data collected for FY99, the animal use category will be added to the projects listed on the BRD. : A 3. Improve the Accuracy of BRD. DOD will improve the accuracy of the FY99 BRD by: A. Requiring and insuring that funding information on the BRD is consistent (i.e. for the funding datafield, 28,000 will be used consistently instead of 28K). B. For Grants/contracts that last more than one year, the funding amount will also contain the number of years the grant/contract will cover (i.e. the funding datafield will be altered to include years, for example: 150,000, FY96-FY99). 4. Inclusion of Projects. DOD will emphasize the requirement to include all projects in](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32230576_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
