There is humans staving to death in the world and worst, and your worried about a lab rat? you also talk as if the researchers are doing this because they like it. I bet if anybody asks they do it because they believe it is required. I note from your web site that none of you is in a position to be able able to give a counter view. Somebody doing research that would have normally be done with an animal.

Have to agree with cornonacob!
And anyway, animals react very differently to pain!
i.e., a frog may be placed in a pot of cool water which is slowly brought to the boil, all while the frog becomes increasingly warm and comfortable, and only registers alarm when the goose is well and truly cooked!

How often do we find activists trying to impose human standards or better on animals, and some going as far as to claim trees can feel pain or alarm!

Something usually reserved for sentient beings!

How often have you heard some intellectual lightweight screaming at a dog in order to deter it from doing something not wanted?

And so they go, BLUE, BLUE, in a higher and higher pitched voice! Expecting this will deter the dog?

Well the dog knows his name, and the high pitched screaming merely registers as cries of increasing pleasure.
Thus the animal redoubles his efforts to please the master, usually what the dog lives for!
Hopefully he's not chewing on the neighbor's kid! Now that's what I call cruel and inhumane treatment

If people would just stop imposing human values and human standards on animals, instead of over emoting for no good reason, they'd simply teach their dog or ill behaved child, the word no first and foremost!
And uttered in the lowest possible guttural tone!

Animals and humans are not the same, and I don't think there's any fear of running out of lab rats any time soon!
All that needs to be eliminated is unnecessary cruelty or nonessential inhumane treatment!
Rhrosty.

Good stuff!
It is always a constant struggle to diminish and even prevent the unthinking, un-feeling cruelty that some human beings seem hell-bent on inflicting on the non-humans.
The Humane Society promotes similar goals as the RSPCA, that is the ROYAL Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Animals, which has a rare Royal Warrant granted by the British Royal family.
The Humane Society is of course also a world-wide organization.

Meanwhile there is this understanding of the non-human inhabitants of this mostly non-human world.
http://sacredcamelgardens.com/wordpress/wisdom/observe-non-humans-and-learn
As does this related site:
http://animalliberty.com

I am a biomedical researcher who performs experiments on animals, performs human clinical trials, and am part of a team developing a "body-on-a-chip" system to better model human disease and preclinical evaluation of drugs and other therapies.
https://www.ted.com/talks/geraldine_hamilton_body_parts_on_a_chip

The author makes the common mistake of assuming that we perform research on animals because we have not considered alternatives. The truth is, there is nothing we would like more than to move away from animals into a more accurate models of human disease. Other than the fact that we don't enjoy causing any harm or distress to any living being, the time and money costs associated with animal studies are huge, and it is universally acknowledged that these models are not ideal for human disease. However, at this stage there are simply no alternatives that accurately model human disease. There are many funding opportunities and research avenues being explored to replace animal experiments in medical research, however at this stage none are currently superior to animal studies.

Let me give you just one example of one animal study we performed during my research in Australia. We had discovered that a type of stem cell that can be isolated from placental tissue was able to be injected to reduce lung inflammation and scarring. We were about to embark on a clinical trial to treat pre-term babies who were at risk of ventilation-induced lung injury. However, all of our data had been generated using stem cells isolated from healthy placentas, not pre-term. We decided that rather take the risk on these pre-term babies, we should perform a small mouse study to see of pre-term placental stem cells were also effected. This study used about 25 mice (from memory), and actually found that the pre-term stem cells were not only ineffective, but increased the lung inflammation markedly. The clinical trial was then postponed and redesigned to use only healthy, term stem cells, rather than the patients own pre-term cells. Without using these 25 mice for this animal experiment, we could have caused 5-10 pre-term babies to have severe lung injury and potentially worse during this initial Phase I trial. People can make their own value judgements regarding if this study was worth it, but in my opinion it was.

The authors "case studies" that are presented on her website do not support her accusations that research was not "considered and approved by an AEC, and that the researchers adhere to strict animal welfare legislation." From what I can see, these "case studies" actually are just a shallow and biased summary of approved and completed animal studies, where the author makes a value judgement on the significance of the data. None of the "case studies" document any unapproved studies, or evidence that the research was performed outside of the strict animal welfare legislation. The assumption that a negative finding (like mine described above), is a waste of animals simply shows the authors ignorance on how research is performed in the real world.

The animal use overview committee generally consists of a veterinarian, someone with no relation with the institution except for serving on the committee, a scientist with experience using experimental animals, and a nonscientist member of the public. Gaining approval from this committee for even the smallest animal study usually takes several months, countless pages of paperwork that needs to be completed in both scientific and non-scientific language, and usually involves several rounds of review, with the committee requesting changes, clarifications or suggesting better alternatives. Once approved, adhering to the specific experiments, rules and regulations defined in the documents (and in law) are strictly enforced. I have seen both researchers and their boss immediately fired for not adhering to the written protocol. In addition to this we also have unannounced USDA inspections to ensure compliance.

So far from the authors complaints that there is no transparency, there is a huge amount of information available on the laws, regulations and guidelines that govern how we use animals in research. Additionally, the committees that review all animal research is open to the public to participate and help guide decision making. However, the author has already formed an opinion that no animal experiments are ever justified. There are always areas where the laws, guidelines and oversight can be improved upon, but based on this article, and the authors website, their goal is to cherry pick information to "name-and-shame" researchers and institutions who use animals, and petition funding bodies to stop funding animal studies. As I mentioned above, we understand the limitations of animal experiments, and are actively working towards developing alternatives. Once these alternatives are shown to be superior to animal studies the field will be very happy to adopt them. To stop all animal studies at this stage would prevent the safe development of new therapies, and result in the increased harm and deaths of patients with the first "real" evaluations occurring in clinical trials.