CAAT Newsletter: Vol. 14, No. 1, Fall 1996

Humane Society of the United States

By Paul G. Irwin

It is obvious from the vantage point of 1996 that the founding of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing 15 years ago was one of the most significant events in the history of the alternatives movement in the United States. CAAT's contributions can be measured not only in tangible terms--the research projects funded, conferences organized, etc.--but also in the intangibles, such as adding the legitimacy of a prestigious academic institution to the search for alternatives.

What is less obvious today is how little had happened on the American alternatives scene before CAAT's establishment. Prior to 1981, key developments had clustered primarily in England (e.g., William Russell and Rex Burch's seminal book [1959] and FRAME's founding [1969]). In the U.S., The HSUS had lured Andrew Rowan from FRAME in 1977, but he was virtually alone in calling for the implementation of Russell and Burch's Three Rs. Then came Henry Spira's campaign against animal testing by the U.S. cosmetics industry, which spawned CAAT. The rest, as they say, is history.

CAAT has played a major role in creating an environment that has fostered the positive developments we've seen over the past 15 years: the increasing numbers of scientists, corporations, and journals devoted to in vitro methods, the launching of validation projects, the efforts to harmonize regulatory requirements and acceptance criteria, the incorporation of the alternatives approach into national laws, and the increasing cooperation among government, industry, animal protection, and academia.

CAAT owes much of its success to Alan Goldberg. He has ably negotiated the difficult terrain at the interface of science, animal advocacy, and public policy. He has provided steady leadership despite having other major commitments at Johns Hopkins University. The HSUS was proud to present our first Russell and Burch Award to Alan in 1991, for his outstanding contribution to advancing the Three Rs.

The Three Rs approach can be viewed as a compromise between the competing ethical positions of those for and against animal research. Consequently, some in the animal protection community have been wary of the alternatives approach and of CAAT as one of its principal proponents. They see the Three Rs as an endorsement of the ethics and medical value of animal experimentation, and therefore a diversion from the task of simply stopping such experiments. Whatever position one takes on these issues, it has become increasingly clear that the alternatives approach has the potential to make substantial contributions toward reducing the use and suffering of animals in laboratories. If Andrew Rowan's estimates of a major decline in animal use in the U.S. are accurate, surely the alternatives approach deserves significant credit.

The HSUS looks forward to CAAT's next 15 years, when the groundwork laid by CAAT and others will inevitably lead to the validation and implementation of more alternative procedures.

Happy anniversary CAAT!

Paul Irwin is President of The Humane Society of the United States.