The impact of an ethics committee on animal protection

Abstract

The creation of animal ethics committees in teaching and research establishes a new ethics in relations with non-human animals. The present article carried out a statistical study of data from 390 research protocols evaluated over eight years by a commission at one Brazilian university, to determine if its actions brought about a reduction in suffering and a proportional decrease in the practice of euthanasia. A statistical significance study was carried out using an extension of the Wilcoxon test, seeking to verify a long-term trend of protection procedures, such as lower predicted levels of stress and pain in protocols, more frequent use of anesthesia and sedatives and a reduction in euthanasia. The results were statistically significant for all three of these items, suggesting a concrete effect of animal protection. The method used is proposed as a form of evaluating the use of these procedures by commissions.