Animal and Human as Research Subject : To Consider Experiment Ethics in Their Connection

摘要

The 3Rs are presented as 'ethics', not merely as research manual or guidelines. It is because scientific necessity and validity are the most fundamental basis to justify animal experiment. In the Japanese Animal Protection Law, the 3Rs are finally stipulated explicitly by modification in 2005. Many, including I myself, criticize that the Japanese law still lacks proper regulations on animal research, but the ethical principles are now legal norms, although there are no public oversight, review nor penalty for violation. I would like to see this problem from a different point of view. Most people would admit that the 3Rs must be also kept in research involving human subject as well as in animal experiment. But in human research ethics, principles equivalent to the 3Rs are not definitely presented. Is it because researchers and lay people take it for granted that ethical principles such as replacement, reduction, refinement are properly kept in human experiment and think that it is not necessary to present them expressly?