We all might assume that to research and experiment on any animals in the United States, there's some policies and regulations that are necessary to follow. For example, if a scientist is conducting a research on a rat, they are expected (under the Health Research Extension Act passed in 1985) to include a Veterinarian doctor and a person unaffiliated to the scientists' respective institution. Certainly, this protections expands to all other animals that are only vertebrates or have a backbones.
However, there's no policy or a law that mandates or legally protects animals such as cephalopods and bees and other invertebrate species (that don't have backbones). This is a question of ethics, law, and further scientific procedures. As bewildering as it is, there's no existing law that protects these animals from exploitation or irregular care of researchers.
Animals such as octopuses and bees are used in many scientific journals as they are inhabit intelligent minds and are sensitive like human beings. Octopuses are ranked third in the smartest sea animals list, gathered by Ocean Conservancy. Thus, their, intricate nervous system, which doesn't need a backbone like us, is tested by a variety of biotech firms, hospitals, institutions, and conservancies. Without any manual or procedure that details on how to care for these animals when researching on them, these animals are under risk to dying and experience suffering. For example, a research that investigated "anesthetic efficacy of magnesium Chloride and ethyl alcohol in temperate Octopus and Cuttlefish species." Their research indicated that when animals were dipped in magnesium chloride (an anesthetic agent used to numb the animals so that they don't suffer from pain while an experiment), they still felt "experimenters touching their body" evident through electrode recordings. However, when rats were dipped in the magnesium chloride, they didn't sense any touch or pain while being unresponsive. Fortunately, this research found that Octopuses go numb after 20 minutes with anesthesia. But before this, there were no proper guidelines that safeguarded these animals from physical stress and pain during scientific studies.
Subjectivity in law
Animal Welfare act: Protects animals such as cats, dogs, or other primates
Health Research Extension Act of 1985: Protects and regulates the treatment of "animals." It didn't particularly define which animals as there are invertebrates and vertebrates. Therefore, many researchers take advantage of this and don't have no proper guidelines to follow when testing on invertebrates. Since 1985, there hasn't been an update in this law.
Both of these above laws require the testers to incorporate Institutional Animals Care and Use Committee (IACUC).
Why impose these laws?
To possess higher knowledge about us and the species around us, we must research them. However, we mustn't exploit or unfairly treating these animals. We need 'responsible research' which encourages following laws and acknowledging animals's rights.
We need a new legislation or an update on the Health Research Extension Act to integrate a proper definition of "animals," in their current law. This would not only safeguard these animals from unfair treatment, but also yield more accurate results for our scientific journals as it will provide all researchers in the United States a proper way to treat all invertebrates and further improve the validity of the experiment as it can be reproduced any location with the same instructions.
Tags: #nature
This article was inspired by the writer, Elizabeth Preston.
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