Many procedures may cause both pain and distress in animals. Animals exhibiting signs of pain, discomfort, or distress are expected to receive appropriate relief unless written scientific justification is provided in the animal activity proposal and approved by the IACUC. Also, unrelieved pain must be minimized to a period of time that is necessary to attain the study objectives.
The attending veterinarian must be consulted during protocol development for treatments for pain and distress alleviation of study animals. This treatments may be pharmacologic, such as anesthetics, analgesics or tranquilizers or non-pharmacologic such as housing, dietary considerations or environmental enrichments.
A procedure must be in place for prompt reporting of sick animals to the veterinary staff.
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