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RISKS RELATED TO ANIMAL TESTING

Resource persons

In this type of experiments, they are gestures to know and procedures to respect.

The ACMO, the person in charge of experiments and the person in charge of the animal house are the three resource persons.

Regulation

There is an important legal frame about animal experiments, due especially to ethical reasons: the animal is not a laboratory reagent, but a living being with its own sensibility.

So, to receive a licence from the Department of Veterinary Services, an animal house must fulfil requirements on premises, their equipment, work organization, work practices.

Whatever their occupation is (animal care, sample taking, experimentation, surgery), specific training is required for all manipulators. Temporary manipulators (PHD student, trainee) may work under the responsibility of somebody authorized to perform experiments on living animals.

Of course, these are constraints, but they also allow becoming a better professional, a better animal health, a better safety for the manipulator, a better reliability of the results.

 

Risks

Risks related to the animal are:

• the traumatic risk (scratches, bites) particularly when the animal is gripped or held
• the biological risk (zoonosis, allergy): microorganisms pathogenic for man can be transmitted to the manipulator even by healthy looking animals ; the zoonosis risk is depending on the manipulated animal species. Hair, saliva, or urin of some species can lead to allergies.

Risks related to the experimentation are:

• the traumatic risk (carrying heavy loads, cut, prick)
• the chemical risk (products used for anaesthesia and euthanasia)
• eventually, depending on the experiment, chemical, radioactive and biological risks

 

General precautions

An animal house is considered as a place with risks and entrance is restricted to those having to work in it; it is not a zoo you can visit.

The precautions which are to be taken depend on the risk analysis of the performed experiment.

But the major recommendations are:

• the respect of the work organization, whether it concerns a conventional, a protected (= animals have to be protected from an imported contamination) or a confined (= an exported contamination must be prevented) animal house
• the learning of gripping and holding all the different manipulated species

		Mouse gripping and holding
	Rat gripping and holding

 

Rabbit holding

(Photos Armelle VAN ES)

• the respect of the instructions and procedures, particularly when changing cages, anaesthesia, euthanasia, waste management, bench decontamination
• the wearing of a lab coat which is specific to the animal house and is not used outside of it the possible wearing of other personal protection equipments (dedicated garment, gloves, glasses, respiratory mask)
• no smoking, drinking, eating, or storing food in the animal house
• a strict hygiene when coming in and out (hand washing before leaving the animal house)
• the immediate disinfection of any wound (check with the ACMO for the disinfection procedure and the storage place of the disinfectants)
• to see the prevention doctor when you start manipulating animals: he will check the status of your anti tetanus vaccination and recommend a possible specific vaccination (depending on the animal species). A medical advice is also needed in case of pregnancy or rhinitis, sneezing, itching, soreness, respiratory problems… (allergy)