Search

Due to the legal implantation of the 3R principle, the number of laboratory animals decreased significantly over the past 10 years. In this article, the historical development of animal experiments over the last decade will be presented in the context of the current regulations of the Animal Welfare Act. It points out bureaucratic obstacles to the approval of animal experiments, which jeopardize Germany as a research location for both academia and industry. The article presents constructive proposals for solutions. This should be done in accordance with the DFG recommendation to ensure efficient biomedical research while maintaining the highest animal welfare standards., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.)

The Dutch Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals), the only political party devoted to animals in the world, wants to take wild as well as domestic animals under its wing and, hence, to remove the traditional dividing line between both domains. How can the Animal Party at the same time claim to stand up for the interests of animals as individuals as well as for the particular interests of wild animals? Rather than perceiving wild animals as mere components of wider entities, the Animal Party starts to personalize wild animals at the moment that their wellbeing can be detected and actively improved.

Introduction: In the present study, farm animal practitioners in Switzerland were questioned about their reported violations of the animal welfare law in cattle and their response to the detection of violations in the year 2017. The answers from 34 participants could be included in the evaluation. In 2017, 7.8% of the farms seen by participating practices were found to be in violation of the animal welfare law. It could be shown that the participating veterinarians reported only a small part (8.7%) of the detected offenses to the veterinary offices. In 91.7% of the cases, they responded to the violations and in only 8.3% of the cases they did not respond or they waited. Most often, they informed the livestock owners about the violation (66.1%) or advised them on the implementation of the animal welfare law (24.0%). The most common reason for the decision of reporting violations or not was the severity of the offense or animal suffering. There are many reasons why violations are not reported. The improvement of the situation after a reference, advice or threat of reporting to the veterinary office and the perception of the violation as minor are the most common ones. In addition, veterinarians see their role more in information and advice than in surveillance and repression.

Introduction: Animal welfare in equestrian sports is a very current and important topic for animal right groups as well as for the Swiss association for equestrian sports "Schweizerischer Verband für Pferdesport (SVPS)". The penalty commission "Sanktionskomission (SAKO)" of the SVPS reported only few to none cases of infringements of animal welfare provision on horses at a time in the past few years. This fact was criticised several times by different animal right groups in Switzerland. Therefore a survey was sent in 2017 to 544 active officials (horse show judges) of the SVPS. Overall, 146 answered questionnaires could be evaluated. The evaluation of the survey was able to confirm the statement of the animal right groups that the number of infringements of animal welfare provision is much higher than the number -handled by the SAKO. Altogether, 203 offences which are relevant in animal welfare were observed by the officials who participated in this survey in 2017. In contrast to these findings, no handled cases of infringements in animal welfare provision were published in the annual report 2017 of the SAKO. 178 of the 203 offences observed by the officials were addressed and reprimanded directly on the showground. The most common incidents which are relevant in animal welfare named by the officials in the survey were inappropriate, aggressive behaviour of the rider or driver and rough handling with artificial aids. A considerable part of the officials feels that the animal welfare situation on Swiss equestrian showgrounds is unsatisfying. An improvement of animal protection in Swiss equestrian sports can be achieved by raising the awareness for this topic of the officials as well as the equestrians and horse owners.

Introduction: The development of animal ethics and animal rights from the antiquity up to modern times is described. The relationship of humans to animals was primarily based on fear and animal cult, developed by the domestication to a partnership. The philosophers of the early modern age denied the animals the reason, what was disadvantageous to the position of the animals in the society and the behavior of humans to the animals. By the end of the 19th century the animal protection concept developed with numerous postulates for legal regulations. With the Swiss animal protection law, which came into force in 1981, most of the postulates could be realised. It is shown, how animal protection has developed since that time.

In order to ensure the quality of biomedical products, an experimental test for every single manufactured batch is required for many products. Especially in vaccine testing, animal experiments are traditionally used for this purpose. For example, efficacy is often determined via challenge experiments in laboratory animals. Safety tests of vaccine batches are also mostly performed using laboratory animals. However, many animal experiments have clear inherent disadvantages (low accuracy, questionable transferability to humans, unclear significance). Furthermore, for ethical reasons and animal welfare aspects animal experiments are also seen very critical by the public. Therefore, there is a strong trend towards replacing animal experiments with methods in which no animals are used ("replacement"). If a replacement is not possible, the required animal experiments should be improved in order to minimize the number of animals necessary ("reduction") and to reduce pain and suffering caused by the experiment to a minimum ("refinement"). This "3R concept" is meanwhile firmly established in legislature. In recent years many mandatory animal experiments have been replaced by alternative in vitro methods or improved according to the 3R principles; numerous alternative methods are currently under development. Nevertheless, the process from the development of a new method to its legal implementation takes a long time. Therefore, supplementary regulatory measures to facilitate validation and acceptance of new alternative methods could contribute to a faster and more consequent implementation of the 3R concept in the testing of biomedical products.

In view of recent developments in human-animal relations, vets and ethicists face a new problem: On the one hand, animals such as mammals and birds are used extensively and are in danger to be reduced to mere production units e. g. in the agricultural production, measuring devices in laboratories, sports equipment etc. On the other hand, biologically similar animals are perceived as family members or partners and are almost treated like humans. The article summarizes the results of a workshop that dealt with reductionism and anthropomorphism in human-animal relations. Vets and ethicists tackled the question how the unequal treatment of biologically similar animals can be better understood and whether it can be ethically justified. In the first section, the problem of inconsistency in human-animals relations is briefly sketched. The second part of the article addresses the ethics of unequal treatment of similar animals in different contexts. The following section inquires possible solutions and the advantages and disadvantages of biological criteria versus social criteria in animal protection. Finally, the background and reasons for our moral intuitions of injustice associated with the inconsistencies in human-animal relations are outlined. This fourth section refers to the presentation of Peter Kunzmann during the workshop on the unequal treatment of equals.The article closes with some general remarks on the issue. One main result of the workshop can be stated as follows: Due to the fact that the various human-animal relations gain their ethical justification from different ethical reasons, the unequal treatment of similar animals in different contexts is not ethically wrong per se. However, every intrusive dealing or interaction with animals is in itself in need of ethical justification.

Animal genetic engineering seems to point at a normative gap beyond pathocentric welfare theories in animal ethics. Recently developed approaches aim to bridge this gap by means of new normative criteria such as animal dignity and animal integrity. The following comparison of dignity and integrity in the context of animal ethics shows that the dignity concept faces serious problems because of its necessarily anthroporelational character and the different functions of contingent and inherent dignity within ethical reasoning. Unlike animal dignity the concept of animal integrity could prove to be a useful enhancement for pathocentric approaches.

Utilitarian ethics recognises animals as moral objects, but it does not attribute an absolute value to human or non-human individuals. Animal ethics according to Regan defines the non-human individual as an inherent value, but concedes that humans should be given precedence over animals if a situation involves a decision between life and death. Such life and death decisions relate to the fundamental structures of biological nature. To individuals these fundamental structures (the paradox of life and death) will necessarily appear absurd. The metaphysical dimension of animal ethics tries to shed light on the connections between life and death, body and mind that underly ethical discussions and searches for alternatives to the natural organisation of life.

The term "performance-related health disorders" has been defined by Bergmann (1992) as catabolic phenomena and pathological processes that are related to or caused by high productivity levels. In the past few years, a cause and effect relationship has been determined between numerous health disorders found in farm animals and their increased productivity. In contrast to the classic hereditary diseases, the performance-related health disorders are anthropogenic diseases. The severity of these disorders is, as a rule, determined by anthropogenic environmental factors. Breeding and keeping animals in such a way that they suffer from performance-related health disorders therefore is an ethical problem. Furthermore, it has also been a legal problem since the implementation of Section 11b of the German Protection of Animals Act (TierSchG) in 1986. However, this ban has not been enforced; the federal ministry responsible argues that this is because there is still a "very controversial discussion" on the question of when the "line that separates breeding from 'problem' or 'agony breeding' (Qualzucht)" has been reached or overstepped. The following article takes a close look at the almost 20-year-old debate on the lack of enforcement. There is a large amount of circumstantial evidence that indicates that the problems that arise in determining whether specific animals fall under Section 11b TierSchG do not arise from a veterinary dispute but rather from the difficulty of identifying responsibilities. The traditional ethical model used to appeal to the feelings of responsibility in a layperson is the so-called Golden Rule ("do unto others as you would have them do unto you") which so far has not been applied to the area of animal breeding. The following article presents a model on how to create an awareness for ethical malpractice. The model makes it possible to use the change of perspective demanded by the Golden Rule and apply it to the area of animal breeding. This provides what could potentially be a useful aid in understanding ones own responsibility. While looking at possible solutions, two aspects are differentiated: the chronic non-enforcement of Section 11b TierSchG and the complete abolition of the problem. Possible solutions are presented for both areas and put up for discussion.

As a rule, transgenic animals are being used in in vivo experiments to examine gene functions, their regulation or the contribution of genetic alterations to the development of diseases. Many transgenic animals already are affected in their wellbeing due to the genetic modification alone regardless of the procedures performed with them. Moreover, it is to be questioned whether the experimental use of transgenic animals led to results that were of such outstanding scientific relevance that they legitimated the suffering of the animals. In order to point to possible approaches to avoiding the use of transgenic animals in the areas of research identified, subsequent investigations aimed at collecting information on non-animal test methods that might be applied in pursuing the aforesaid questions. In particular, these were non-animal test methods that make use of genetic techniques. Amongst these are in vitro cell culture methods with genetically modified cells, such as the so called Transfected Cell Array, as well as in vitro test methods, in which specifically targeted genes can be turned on or off selectively for example by the so-called RNA interference technique or by antisense oligonucleotide genes. Since such technologies can also be applied to cell cultures with human cells, investigations with these methods enable direct information on the function of human genes. Even though a one to one replacement of animal experiments with transgenic animals by non-animal test methods is considered unlikely, from the point of view of animal welfare the broad spectrum of already available non animal test methods with which to study the function of genes and genetically caused pathophysiological reactions proves that waiving of animal tests with transgenic animals is possible without impeding biomedical research. Even if it cannot be totally excluded that some very specific questions linked to the respective animal experiment might not be pursued for the time being, nevertheless research that would be restricted to modern and ethically acceptable in vitro test methods would certainly conceive its very own questions to pursue and solve the problems currently faced by biomedical research. It is against this background that it is to be welcomed that the German Federal Government currently actively promotes the further development of genetechnological non-animal test methods. In order to ensure that these funding measures will make an effective contribution to reducing animal experiments, as spelled out by the government itself, the conversion of genetechnological research, just like biomedical research as a whole, to non-animal testing methods should be supported by concrete political actions. From the point of view of the German Animal Welfare Federation the following issues are to be requested: (1)In order to enable a fast and comprehensive advancement of promising genetechnological non-animal test methods, it should be ensured that public funding is provided with an adequate budget and over a sufficiently long period of time. (2)The legislator should initiate broad discussions on the question if society would be willing to dispense with certain pieces of knowledge if they would necessarily have to be gained at the expense of a certain degree of animal suffering. As the case may be, in the German Animal Welfare Act it should be laid down that certain procedures should not be considered acceptable as such. (3)As long as animal experiments with transgenic animals continue to be performed, concrete legal measures should be laid down in the German Animal Welfare Act to ensure that the distress of the animals (taking into account all factors relevant for transgenic animals) and the expected benefit of the research project are determined objectively so that the outcome of the ethical evaluation process becomes comprehensible. (4)The legislator should provide the authorities responsible for the licensing of research projects with concrete instructions in order to ensure that all aspects relevant for the welfare of the animals are fully taken into account when evaluating the ethical acceptability and scientific indispensability of projects and that special attention is given to research projects with transgenic animals. (5)The German Decree on the Reporting of Laboratory Animals should be amended to ensure that all individual transgenic animals are included in the official statistical reports regardless of whether they end up being used in scientific procedures or not. From the point of view of animal welfare it is possible to redesign biomedical research to do without transgenic animals without impeding necessary scientific progress. The survey in hand sought to make a contribution to providing a scientifically sound background for initiating these discussions.

An argumentational analysis of the German legislation for animal welfare suggests that the concept "Ethischer Tierschutz", declared as a state objective in 2002, allows the legislative body greater scope than that utilized so far. The legislator would, in principle, be able to regulate some problem areas which have been repeatedly addressed by the public as well as the ethics. A comparison with Switzerland and the EU-member Austria shows that both countries' animal welfare legislations already reach beyond a strictly suffering-based protection framework by employing additional anthropocentric arguments. The concept "Ethischer Tierschutz" would make this approach likewise feasible in Germany.

It is for reasons of age I will have to terminate my work at the Literary Review in the form developed since 1995. The report is being reduced to a concentration of ethically relevant reviews as exemplified in the fourth-quarter issue of ALTEX. This is to ascertain that essential developments in this field will not be overlooked. Insofar, the Literary Review will be continued under the heading "New literature concerning topics of animal ethics". The more central topics of animal ethics are being "used up" the more new questions are being formulated. Thus it was that during the last few years the plant-world, long neglected, was rediscovered and received attention through the publication of important works. Another recent discovery concerns itself with "cognitive ethology" which developed out of the critique of behaviourism and which is dealt with in a separate chapter in this issue. But there is also a "classic" of ethics who has been reviewed and interpreted anew repeatedly. In her book "Albert Schweitzer, a prophet of medical ethics", Heike Baranzke describes Schweitzer's ethics as not sentimental or nostalgic but rather as a radically modern stance, committed to the enlightenment. Manuel Schneider, also, conveys a comprehensive view of Albert Schweitzer's ethics in "Life in the middle of life - the relevance of the ethics of Albert Schweitzer", a book edited by Altner, Frambach, Gottwald and himself in 2005. For this, in particular, he derives a possibility of a physiocentric ethics. By contrast, Beate Weinzierl approaches Schweitzer on a complete personal and human level in "Yearning for nature - access to inner and outer nature with Albert Schweitzer". Wolfgang Senz is undertaking a critical appreciation of Albert Schweitzer's concept of "life" and this, foremost, in the light of Schweitzer's rejection of the Cartesian "I am". In the end, Jean Claude Wolf cannot manage without citing Schweitzer either, referring to him in his not accepting the (western) world's excessive meat consumption as a "cruel necessity". Klaus Peter Joern also enters into Schweitzer's fundamental argumentation in his "A good bye to the disparagement of our fellow creatures". Quotation: "It just cannot go on that Christianity lets the validity of the commandment of love end at the behaviour towards humans, simply because that is the tradition. We rather have to, in this instance, deny the authority of the Bible it's due respect, as this has deemed Schweitzer already inevitable." The killing of animals, irrespective of the motives, remains a critical issue in the understanding (or the lack thereof) with regard to the dignity of all creation. Manuela Linnemann, Charles Patterson, Evelyn Ofensberger and the German Veterinary Association for the Protection of Animals have dealt with this issue extensively. As always, more space is taken up by publications dealing with legal questions and developments. In particular, the conference report of the Protestant Academy at Bad Boll should be mentioned "Animal protection on good constitution". Contributions to this report, edited by the academy, include Hans Georg Kluge's "The governmental aim 'animal protection' and it's implementation in jurisdiction" and Johannes Caspar's "effects of the governmental goal 'animal protection' in the protected area of unconditional fundamental rights". Regarding animal experiments, the last two position papers commissioned by the Foundation for animal-free research (FFVFF), dealing with perspectives of 3R research, have been published within the period of time covered by this report. Alternatives in basic research (with once again rising numbers of experimental animals) and in biomedical education are the themes dealt with by Franz P. Gruber and his co-authors Thomas Hartung and David Dewhurst.

While the German Federal Government has set itself the goal to make an active contribution to reducing animal experiments, the use of transgenic animals in biomedical research continuously increases every year. It is against this background that the study at hand aimed at providing an overview over the goals and the contents of research projects performed in Germany, in the course of which transgenic animals were produced or used in experimental procedures. Specifically, it was envisaged to spell out those specific areas of research, for which transgenic animals mainly were being used. Subsequently it was evaluated whether the research goals revealed might also be pursued with non animal test methods. In a literature survey, a total of 577 scientific publications relevant for the purposes of the study were collected. This material enables conclusions on those scientific areas, in which transgenic animals are used, applying to fundamental research, but not on their use in routine procedures in applied research or for the maintenance of transgenic breeds, since such purposes do not tend to be the subject of publications in scientific journals. According to the topics covered by the publications, main areas of biomedical research with transgenic animals can be found in the fields of neurobiology, immunology, cardiology, embryology and oncology. However their use can be discerned in all other areas of fundamental biomedical research as well. In accordance with the official German laboratory animal statistics, the vast majority of transgenic animals used were mice, followed by rats and pigs. Additionally, singular research projects with fish, rabbits and chicken were recorded. (In the official German laboratory animals statistics, very small numbers of transgenic hamsters, sheep and amphibians were also recorded in the past years.) A high percentage of the rats were used in cardiovascular research, whereas transgenic pigs as a rule were produced and bred as organ donors in xenotransplantation research. The majority of research projects either dealt with the experimental use of already established transgenic animal lines, or they described that transgenic animals specifically were produced for the purpose of the respective research project. Mostly, transgenesis was initiated by inserting the foreign gene into the germ cell genome. In some research projects, it was reported that the transgenic material was inserted into normally bred animals some time after parturition.

Most research and breeding institutions have to deal with the problem of post-experimental or surplus laboratory animals. The German law on Animal Welfare (Tierschutzgesetz) forbids to kill animals without proper reason. This prohibition is valid for laboratory animals, too. If an animal survives an experiment without permanent pain or harm, the further remain must be organised. Re-homing of these animals to private people is one solution for this problem. The animals can be passed on to a family as a pet. Another possibility is to re-home the animal with the help of a welfare organisation. This way offers some advantages. The organisation seeks the new owners, gives them all necessary information and remain available for them. Using such an organisation, the re-homing process is to a great extend safe and anonymous for the research institution. Many institutions already made very good experiences in the cooperation with welfare organisations.

Seven years ago, the veterinary association for animal protection (Tieraerztliche Vereinigung fuer Tierschutz e.V., TVT) in Germany first published an orientation guide on the ethics of animal protection aimed at the entire veterinary profession: the "Codex Veterinarius - ethical guiding principles on veterinary action for the good and the protection of animals". The dilemmas of the veterinary profession have not changed since then, but as the principle that "nothing can be so good that it cannot be improved" also applies to the Codex, the two authors have attempted to optimise the few weak spots of the Codex. Joerg Luy sees the task of the Codex in surpassing the animal protection law in two respects: on the one hand regarding moral aspects that cannot be regulated (e.g. respect for the "intrinsic value" of the animal, which is greater than its "utilitarian value") and on the other hand in cases where the law does not live up to its own goals (e.g. regarding the inconsistent regulation on causing "longer term or repeated grave pain or suffering").

The repeated attempts to tighten up the literary report are finally showing effects. This not only as a result of shorter reports but also because of the fact that less is being written and published regarding our topic. The discussion seems exhausted which, for years, dealt with the controversial moral status of animals and the--finally--constitutionally sanctioned status of animal protection in Germany. The problem of animals in ethics is becoming a rarity. Correspondingly, bio-ethics is oriented towards human problems and related borderline cases in a rather one-sided manner. This radically altered situation corresponds to an equally profound shift in the direction of our thinking. In the 1970's it was the shock in reaction to brutality towards T.V.-reports. But soon questions asking about the guilty were being posed. To direct the question from a guilt-related "who" to the "what" of the underlying reasons was a more difficult task. Just like social ethics developed out of social criticism, modern animal ethics developed out of the criticism of cruelty to animals. And, to the degree that this criticism became a common public concern, it lost its importance in comparison to the ethical questions now moving into the centre of the interest. In view of book-production this means that animal protection-related literature appears in three major groups: Husbandry, Use and Abuse, Animal Protection Law, Animal (Protection) Ethics. To collect these three groups simultaneously is becoming increasingly difficult. The concentration on, and supposedly a limitation to the sectors morals and ethics of the man-animal relationship cannot be avoided in the literary report. Morals is stressed here in particular in order to limit the excessive dominance of theoretical ethics and to preserve the priority of action-guiding morals.

It may not be spectacular, but the compilation of a new comment on the German Animal Protection Law before the background of the new constitution is the most important medium and long-term event since the inclusion of animal protection into the constitution in Germany. The comment was also occasion to mark the ethically motivated change in the awareness of society, which has strengthened continuously since the eighties, not only entering the law as the "responsibility of mankind for animals as fellow creatures" but also posing a question to the ethicists, who have since been searching for answers. Eisenhart von Loeper who wrote the "Introduction to the law on the relationship between man and animal" and the comment on the first principle paragraph followed these endeavours of theology and philosophy. Under point 6.3 of this report on the literature some important results are summarised under the keywords "species-spanning humanity", "fellow creaturism", "anthropocentrism-criticism", "principle of equality" and "equity and rights of animals". Significant differences are evident in the comparison of the different concepts that have been developed in animal ethics, also regarding the expanse of the demands made for the benefit of the animals. The general opinion in philosophy that animal ethics and animal protection can only apply to the higher developed animals points towards a tendency to consider only a kind of "animal elite" morally relevant and worthy of protection and to exclude the mass of others as soulless automats by keeping the status quo and exposing them to indiscriminate use by humans. Species-spanning equality must be decidedly demanded.

Large parts of our modern world are products of science and technology. Natural structures are decreasing, artificial (technical) structures are increasing. This is not only true for technical or technically-based developments in the strict sense (e.g. information and communication technologies), but also for developments in the fields of medicine and biology (e.g. reproductive medicine, gene technology). At the same time, progress based on science and technology is proving limitless. So, it is necessary to think about human measures that can be applied to scientific and technological advances, and to realise them. These are questions posed by scientific ethics, about contrasting pure knowledge provision with orientated knowledge finding. Scientific ethics show themselves to be part of general civil ethics, instead of special ethics in the usual sense, and are connected with them through a special ethos, the scientist's ethos.

The Jewish-Christian convictions that man was created as the image of God founded the "ethics of unavailability" which contrast with the utilitarian "ethics of interests." As man s nature is imperfect according to biblical understanding, those responsible in the field of experimental medicine should counteract all tendencies in society which promote an utopian definition of health and an eugenic mentality (idea of the "perfection of mankind"). Consequently, scientists must reflect their own image of man and the effects of their actions on this image. The goals of experimental medicine must also be examined under the aspect of fairness: do they only benefit a minority in the rich industrial nations? As in research on humans, the ethical evaluation of animal experiments must consider the question of the underlying image of humanity and the responsibility of mankind connected to it. Because of changes in society's values, the validity of traditional anthropocentrism is increasingly questioned. However, this does not affect the view of the special position of man as the bearer of responsibility. Even though there are different biblical statements on the relationship between man and animal, the Christian maxim to minimise violence towards animals can be derived from them. In the case of animal experiments this means: experiments which cause the animals severe suffering must be avoided by waiving the potential gain of knowledge from them. In general: in an ethical discussion on medical experiments using humans or animals, the public must be informed completely and involved effectively. A moratorium must be possible before plans become facts. Thinking about ethical problems in the area of experimental medicine should not be separated from the far-reaching questions about changes in our lifestyle and consumer behaviour.