Background and Objective: In order to ethically supervise laboratory animal (LA) researches, various regulatory structures (RS) are developed in many countries. Our primary hypothesis was that these RS are not well developed in Iran, therefore, we aimed to propose the principles of developing these RS in our country, based on scientific principles and religious morals.
Materials and Methods: Two scientific databases (SID and PubMed) were searched for literatures relevant to regulations and welfare regarding LA in Iran. Regulations on LA research in 4 selected countries (USA, Canada, UK, and Australia) were studied and compared with those of Iran. Following asserting the trueness of our primary hypothesis, we proposed a scientific and religious moral basis for research on LA in Iran.
Results: Twelve articles met the inclusion criteria for our study. Two PubMed articles had mainly discussed the endeavours made for developing LA regulations and welfare in the country. We classified the rest of the articles into two groups: A) articles concerning the welfare of LA; B) articles concerning the development of ethical codes of conduct for the care and use of LA. In group A, there were a contrast between the results of various studies, leading us to an unclear view of LA welfare in the country. In group B, although invaluable codes were already developed, there was a lack of executive support for them and results of other studies showed the aforementioned codes were routinely neglected by researchers. We proposed two main bases for developing RS in our country based on scientific principles (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) and religious morals (observing the basic needs of animals, avoiding unnecessary harm to animals, avoiding unnecessary loss of animals in research).
Conclusion: Despite the development of ethical codes of conduct for care and use of LA in Iran, an effective executive support for them is yet to be developed. According to the scientific principles and religious morals, it is necessary to take serious attention for implementing regulatory acts for supervising LA research in the country.
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