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The following HTML text is provided to enhance online readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML. Please use the page image as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy. TABLE 1 Type of Pain Expected from Surgical Procedures
Based on my experience, I can tell you what types and what amount of pain are expected from certain surgical procedures (Table 1), but I sometimes have to rethink these expectations. Last week, I advised a student not to do an epidural on a dog to fix a lower limb fracture because I thought it would not be very painful. In fact, however, I was wrong. Again, flexibility is essential. CATEGORY DWhen we say that a study is in Category D and pain and distress will be alleviated by use of anesthetics, analgesics, or by other measures, do we then alleviate the condition? On our IACUC, we have been saying that if investigators do not give analgesics just because they do not know what to give and they do not know how to give it, they must put their study in Category E. Apparently, that course of action is not consistent with the policy. I think that when animals still experience pain despite analgesic administration, it probably means that it is an ineffective choice of drug agent, or the wrong frequency or dose. It is necessary to change either the method or the category. I believe we need to have another category, that is, pain that was not able to be alleviated: Category D-2. This is simply an idea because I believe that most surgical interventions are not totally pain or distress free, even with medication. Although pain and distress may be largely alleviated, the biggest problem is that the investigator, and in many cases the laboratory animal veterinarian who might be the person who is consulted, is not likely to know how. I believe we need a lot of work in this area. HSUS also states that “sensitive practical measures to gauge levels of distress in common laboratory animal species do not presently exist. For the most part, animal care staff rely on ad hoc observations or on relatively insensitive measures such as weight loss to ascertain whether animals are experiencing pain and/or distress.” Dr. Bayne made an excellent (albeit heartbreaking) point that things are more complicated than we even suspected. However, I actually take
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