By Lee Jihae

A newly released guide offers guidelines on ethical practices in animal experimentation.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on Jan. 15 said it published a manual on devising plans for animal experiments so that researchers fully consider animal welfare and research ethics.

The booklet proposes ethical experiments that minimize the suffering of animals from the early stage of the planning process.

It helps researchers understand the review criteria of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) and devise plans that fully reflect relevant laws and ethical principles.

Other features are a step-by-step core guide to animal experiment plans, drafting testing plans by type and examples of written plans for the task.

It specifically explains the validity of an experiment's purpose, number of animals to be used, ways to lower suffering and setting criteria for humane termination.

The guide will distributed to the committees for animal experimentation ethics of all related institutions in the country and is available on the IACUC's official website (www.animal.go.kr/aec).

jihlee08@korea.kr