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
Catalogue details

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.

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    B-278778 granting researchers the approval to conduct research and then subsequently ordering animals for the research project. The BRD includes research funded by DoD as well as research performed by DoD that is funded by external sources such as the National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer Association. The BRD, which is updated annually, contained 805 project summaries for fiscal year 1996. It was updated to reflect fiscal year 1997 projects on October 1, 1998, one year after the fiscal year ended; project summaries for fiscal year 1996 were replaced by those for fiscal year 1997. DOD Has Created a Publicly Available Database on Its Animal Research Programs DOD has made progress in making information available to the public on its animal research programs and activities. Prior to the creation of the BRD, information on animal research was contained as part of a larger Defense Technology Information Center (DTIC) database, which includes the broad range of DoD research and development projects. However, DoD did not require all of its animal research activities, such as those involving clinical training or investigations, to be reported to the DTIc database. DOD now requires all animal research projects to be reported separately in the BRD. In addition, the BRD is publicly available on the Internet, while the DTIC database has restricted public access. Problems With DOD’s Animal Use Information The fiscal year 1996 BRD had a number of problems, including inaccurate and incomplete disclosure of information about DOD’s animal use projects. These problems stem from DoD not collecting certain valuable information from animal use facilities and not reporting certain other information that it did collect. Other problems of inaccuracy or inconsistency in the database were due to flawed data reported to DoD by facilities. The BRD is inaccurate with respect to the number of animal use projects. For example, in the course of performing our work, we found seven projects or research protocols that were not included in the database. These projects were performed at three different DoD organizations: the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, the Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, and the Marine Corp’s Camp Lejeune Field Medical Service School. The animals used included goats, sheep, rodents, and nonhuman primates. Alternatively, we identified 19 projects in the fiscal year 1996 BRD related to medical research for biological defense that did not involve the use of animals that year (although they did involve animals in other years). In addition, we identified one project that was
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