The Three Rs and the Humanity Criterion 9780950170022

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The Three Rs and the Humanity Criterion MichaelBalls cop~of tbis abriogeo versionof Tbe Principles wasprese11teo b~ FRAMEto eacb participant i11 tbe 7tb Worlo Congress011Alternativesa110Animal Usei11tbeLifeScie11ces 1 wbicbtookplace 01130 August to 3 September2-009 1 i11 Rome of tbe 5otb 1 Ital~1 i11recog11itio11 an11iversar~ oftbepublication of W.M.S. Russella110R.L. Burch outsta11oi11g boo~a110also to mark tbe cbarit~'s own 4otb a1111iversar~. A

Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments Russell & Burch House 96-98 North Sherwood Street Nottingham NG l 4EE, UK

An abridgedversionof

The Principlesof HumaneExperimentalTechnique by W.MS. Russell and R.L. Burch

'

www.frame.org.uk

FRAME,Nottingham,UK 2009

CONTENTS

The Three Rs and the Humanity Criterion

MichaelBalls An abridged version of The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique

by W.MS. Russell and R.L. Burch Foreword and original 1959 text ©Cleo Paskal 2009 Preface to abridged version and additional notes ©Michael Balls 2009 All rights reserved Designed by: 4 Sheets Design & Print Ltd Published by: Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments Russell & Burch House, 96-98 North Sherwood Street Nottingham NG 1 4EE, UK ISBN 978-0-9501700-2-2

Foreword, by Cleo Paskal

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Prefaceto the Abridged Version,by Michael Balls Acknowledgements

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Prefaceto the OriginalVersion,by W.M.S. Russelland R.L.Burch

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Chapter 1: Introduction 3 Chapter 2: The Concept of Inhumanity 9 Chapter 3: The Ecologyof ExperimentalAnimals 19 Chapter 4: The Sources,Incidenceand Removalof Inhumanity 29 Chapter 5: Replacement 35 Chapter 6: Reduction 63 Chapter 7: Refinement 85 Chapter 8: The FactorsGoverningProgress 99 Chapter 9: Addendum 113 Chapter 10: References 117 Index

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FOREWORD ProfessorWilliam Moy Stratten Russell( 1925-2006) had the remarkable ability to uncover jagged pieces of raw information, then fit them together in innovative ways in order to construct new and complex pictures of the way the world functions. He applied psychological theories to humaneanimal experimentation. He brought folklore into the study of population growth. He applied Greek history to science fiction. In essence, he took what had, over the years, become a fragmented, academic view of the world, and pieced it back together into a cohesive whole. And he did it all with a spirit of joyful discovery and the meticulousnessof a true scientist. Professor Russell'sunique approach was clear from the start of his academic career. The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique ( 1) was his first book, published when he was 34 years old. He infused it with a lifetime's worth of pent-up intellectual curiosity, ably complemented by Dr Rex Burch's own skilled research. The Principles is dense and layered, bringing in elements as diverse as psychoanalysis, the Classics,and the experimental method. This very complexity has, for some, been a barrier. That is why this abridgement, completed with intelligence. and passion by Professor Michael Balls- someone Professor Russellheld in great esteem - is so welcome. It will make accessible the original core of the Three Rsto a wider audience, and hopefullY, will spur greater interest in the field. After publishing The Principles, Professor Russellrarely explicitly revisited the Three Rsuntil his 'rediscovery' decades later. However, his later work was clearly suffused by his study of animal behaviour, and the intelligence, humanity and analytic ability so clearly on display in The Principles. Many of his subsequent books focused more on the human animal, and were co-written with his wife, the psychoanalyst, Claire Russell, including Human Behaviour: A New Approach (2), Violence, Monkeys and Man (3), and Population Crises and Population Cycles (4). This linkage between animal and human behaviour, and the extraordinary working relationship between the two Russells,was clear as early as spring of 1958, a year before The Principles was published, when they published On Man-Handling Animals for The UFAW Courier (5). In one telling line, they wrote: "The study of human attitudes to, and the treativ

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ment of, animals is one of the most powerful and revealing techniques for the study of human social behaviour." In the same waY, this abridgement is a distillation of a much more complex book. The Principles itself contains in it some of the puzzle pieces of the Russells'later works. In this era of specialisation, it is intellectually thrilling to discover a work that breaks through the rigid walls within academia, and explores, not simply what humane experimentation means, but what being human means. For Professor Russell,the Three Rswas just the beginning of a longer journey of scientific discovery. HopefullY, this abridgement will open the door for others to piece together their own puzzles. Cleo Paskal Reading, Berkshire March2009

References 1. Russell,W.M.S.& Burch, R.L.( 1959). The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. 238 pp. London, UK:Methuen. 2. Russell,C. & Russell,W.M.S. Human Behaviour: A New Approach. 532 pp. Boston, MA, USA: Little, Brown and Company. 3. Russell,C. & Russell,W.M.S. (1968). Violence, Monkeys and Man. 340 pp. London, UK:Macmillan. 4. Russell,C. & Russell,W.M.S.(1999). Population Crisesand Population Cycles. 124 pp. London, UK: Galton Institute. 5. Russell,C. & Russell,W.M.S.(1958), On man-handling animals. UFAWCourier 14, 1-13.

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PREFACETO THE ABRIDGEDVERSION Background Although 2009 dawned as a gloomy year with regard to the world economies and human conflict, it will nevertheless be a very special year for many of us, because of some important anniversaries.These include the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1 ), the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME;2), and the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Principles of Humane Experimental Techniqueby William M.S. Russelland RexL. Burch (3), hereafter called The Principles. When I went to Copenhagen in December 1992, to be examined by the Board of Governors of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre as the potential first Head of the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM),part of the interview had to be in a language other than my own first language. I was asked to comment, in French, on the Maastricht Treaty of 1991, one of the most controversial of the European treaties, and the one which established the European Union. I said that I hadn't read the treaty, and that I suspected that many of those who very strongly supported or opposed it, probably hadn't read it either. The DanishChairman laughed and said that this was a brilliant answer, which his wife, as a Eurosceptic, would greatly appreciate when he told her about it. I subsequently came to the conclusion that, similarlY,the overwhelming majority of those who are involved in one way or another with the ethical and scientific questions raised by animal experimentation, are unlikely ever to have read The Principles itself. It was here that William Russell and RexBurch elaborated their Three Rsconcept of replacement, reduction and refinement, as a way in which the inhumanity directly or indirectly involved in performing potentially painful experiments on nonhuman vertebrates can be diminished or eliminated altogether. There are various reasons for this. The original version was published in 1959, and, despite the publication of a special edition by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW)in 1992, ThePrinciples Vil

has been out of print for many years. However, it is now freely available on the Altweb web site (4), so that excuse no longer applies. The text was written, mainlY,if not totallY, by W.M.S.R.,who originally went up to Oxford to read Classics,but who switched to Zoology after his university education was interrupted by active service in the Second World War.As someone with a similar educational background, though much weaker in the Classics,I greatly appreciate his use of Englishand the richness of the language used to illustrate his arguments, but I have to admit that The Principles is not an easy read. In fact, I did not come across the book until the late 1980s, by which time I had been a FRAMETrustee for nearly 10 years, and committed to replacement for at least fifteen years, partly as a result of meeting David Smyth and receiving a copy of his excellent book, Alternatives to Animal Experimentation (5). He gave us the Three Rsdefinition of alternatives, to include all procedures which can completely replace the need for animal experiments, reduce the number of animals required, or diminish the amount of pain or distress suffered by animals in meeting the essential needs of man and other animals. It was Clive Hollands, Secretary of the Committee for the Reform of Animal Experimentation (CRAE),who mentioned The Principles to me during a meeting of the Animal Procedures Committee at the Home Office, in London. There was no copy at FRAME,so he brought his own copy to the next Animal Procedures Committee meeting, whereupon I took it back to Nottingham and photocopied the whole thing. Later on, I searched through all the records at FRAME,but I could find no mention of W.M.S.R.and R.L.Bor their book. I therefore came to the conclusion that the establishment by Dorothy Hegarty and Charles Foister in 1969 of an organisation devoted to replacement was what W.M.S.R. and I, as Oxford-educated zoologists, would have called convergent evolution, that is, the emergence of structures with similar functions that came about via very different routes, as common adaptations to similar environmental pressures. I have to confess that, now having access to my own copY, I didn't actually read The Principles thoroughly until several years later, when I came across copies of the UFAWspecial edition in various circumstances. When I did read the book, I found some of its passages so astounding that I have had to read them over and over again, year on year, sometimes aloud, whilst on my own. However, there were other passages which I found very difficult to follow, and which still confound me, despite many attempts at working out what W.M.S.R.and R.L.B.intended their messageto be. viii

Thus, having been editor since 1983 of FRAME'sjournal, ATLA (Alternatives to Laboratory Animals), which publishes articles by authors from all over the world, and having been the head of an international scientific unit in the European Commission for nearly ten years, I began to wonder if I could do something to help to make The Principles more readily accessible to readers whose first language is not English.Some of the words and expressions used by W.M.S.R.,though undoubtedly elegant, are not easily understood. Two extreme examples, limn and adumbrate, would be likely to appear foreign to most readers whose first language is English,including me. I therefore decided to ask Cleo Paskal,W.M.S.R.'sLiterary Executor and now owner of copyright of The Principles, if I could produce an abridged version, in which I would seek to retain the remarkable concepts and flavour of the original, whilst clarifying some of the English language employed, as well as reducing some of the lengthy discus~ions based on uses of animals in the 1950s which are no longer practised. She kindly gave her permission without hesitation, so that is what I have tried to do.

The abridged versionof ThePrinciples The title of the abridged version of The Principles is based on pages 32-33 and 101-102 of this version, and pages 64 and 157 ofW.M.S.R. and R.L.B.'s original version. The task of the abridger is to shorten by making omissions, while retaining the basic contents and the sense of the original written work. I have to say that I have never liked abridged books, and especially Reader's Digest Condensed Books, in the belief that it is the privilege of authors themselves to decide how long their books should be, not of some third party! Nor am I confident that W.M.S.R.would have fully approved of what I have done. I edited several articles by him between 1995 and 2006, and I think he was more resistant to editorial advice than any other author I have come across. In time, I did often get my way through a combination of subtlety and diplomacY, and I was delighted when his comment on the last edited proof I sent him, in June 2006, was "quite perfect". ix

This is not the place to embark on a detailed biography of the authors of The Principles, but a brief review may be appropriate.

The project which led to The Principles was the brainchild of Major Charles Hume, the founder of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW),who, in 1954, appointed W.M.S.R.,then a young postdoctoral researcher,to conduct "systematic research on the progress of humane research in the laboratory". R.L.B. became involved at the suggestion of Alistair Worden, founder of Huntingdon ResearchCentre and editor of the first edition of The UFAWHandbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory Animals, published in 194 7. R.L.B.'s main contribution, until he left UFAWin 1956, was, in the words of W.M.S.R., that he "travelled widely over Britain, interviewing well over a hundred experimentalists, and every single one of them was helpful and cooperative" (6). Meanwhile, W.M.S.R.stayed with UFAW,did the analysis,and wrote the report which was to lead to the publication of The Principles in 1959. Astonishingly, there was virtually no contact between them for the next three decades. R.L.B.established himself as a microbiologist and spent many years running a one-man testing laboratory in the Town Hall at Sheringham, on the North Norfolk coast. W.M.S.R.,after five years as a psychotherapist and then a brief spell as a civil servant in the Commonwealth Bureau of Pasturesand Field Crops, became a founder member of the new Department of Sociology at the University of Reading, where he progressed from Lecturer (1966) to Emeritus Professor (1990). He led an amazing life, building first-class reputations, not only as an academic, but also as an author, classicist, composer, correspondent, musician, philosopher, raconteur and radio quiz panellist (7). In 1990, W.M.S.R.and R.L.B.were "rediscovered" as a partnership by Martin Stephens of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), who came from Washington, DC, to England to seek their permission to use their names for the new HSUS Russell and Burch Award for contributions to the Three Rsand laboratory animal welfare. From that time on, W.M.S.R.and R.L.B.were "in almost weekly contact by correspondence and telephone" (6), and, encouraged by the HSUS and UFAW,W.M.S.R. and his wife, Claire, went to see R.L.B.in Sheringham in 1993. Like many others, I first met W.M.S.Rin Baltimore in November 1993, at the First World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences, where the local host was Alan Goldberg, head of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CMT) at Johns Hopkins University. W.M.S.R.'s speech at an awards luncheon revealed him as a star performer, as well as providing some fascinating insight into the origins

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I have tried not to diminish the significance of the original way in which the Three Rsconcept was spelled out for us, but to rejoice in it. I have also tried to avoid introducing my own ideas or prejudices. Nevertheless,I am, of course, aware that any selection of what to omit or retain inevitably involvesa considerable degree of bias. I havetried to adhere to a common style throughout, but this was very difficult at times. The discerning reader may be able to recognise those parts of The Principles which I still struggle to understand. That reminds me of an occasion, manyyears ago, when I reviewed a theoretical book on mathematical approaches to developmental biology, for Nature. I met its author a few months later,who said that it was a pretty good review, since it contained hints that I almost understood what he was trying to say. By using a contrasting typeface, I have tried to make a clear distinction between the words of the original version (in the Times New Roman font) and my own additions and explanations, apart from minor editorial points (in the Kabel medium font used for this Preface). I considered using footnotes as a more conventional way of providing clarification, but I decided that doing so would make the abridged version look too much like a commentary. Some key sentences have been highlighted in boxes within the text (in the American Garamond Italic font) - I think this kind of emphasis is helpful, but I recognise that it unavoidably introduces another opportunity for personal bias. I have not included any of the relatively small number of illustrations or any of the tables in the original book. The number of references has been drastically reduced, although they are all available in the original version, of course. I have also used the ATLA style of numbering the references in the text, then listing them in order of quotation, with journal titles given in full. I hope The Three Rs and the Humanity Criterion will be found to be useful. However, I would also appreciate receiving any negative comments. My defence in the face of those who doubt its value, will be that, by provoking thought, and even criticism, it will have served to further the principal aim of W.M.S.Rand R.L.B.- that is, to stimu-

late some experimentalists to devote special attention to the subject, and many others to work in full awareness of its existence and possibilities.

W.M.S.Rand R.L.B.,before and after 1959

of the Three Rs(8). Like a number of others, I took the opportunity to get to know him and have some invaluable conversations. I went to see R.L.B.at Sheringham in August 1994, where I was overwhelmed by his warmth and enthusiasm (9). He presented me with a prefatory note for the special volume of ATLA, which was to mark FRAME's 25th Anniversary - this was the first joint W.M.S.R./R.L.B. publication since 1959 (10). In order to ensure that his reminiscences were captured and recorded, I arranged for him to have a small contract from ECVAM,which led to a report on his personal view on the progress of humane experimental technique (11 ). On my return to ltalY, knowing that he was too ill to travel far from home, I suggested to Alan Goldberg that we should invite some Three Rs people go to Sheringham for a meeting with W.M.S.Rand R.L.B.This resulted in The Three Rs: The Way Forward, a workshop which began in the Council Room at Sheringham Town Hall on a truly memorable morning in May 1995 (12). This was the first scientific meeting which W.M.S.R. and R.L.B. had attended together since 1959. SadlY,it was also to be the last, as R.L.B. died on 9 March 1996, after a long fight against a distressing form of skin cancer (6). However, there had been one other lasting outcome of my earlier visit to Sheringham, since, in March 1995, W.M.S.R.had come to Nottingham to open FRAME'snew headquarters, Russell & Burch House. On this, as on a number of other recent occasions, R.L.B.had taken part in the proceedings in absentia, via a pre-recorded audio message (13). W.M.S.R.travelled widely on Three Rsmissions from 1990 onwards. His ability to combine serious science and philosophy with song and dance, as at the Second and Third World Congresses in Utrecht (1996; 14) and Bologna ( 1999; 15), was unforgettable, as was the First FRAME Annual Lecture, which he gave in London in September 1999 (16). He was also able to indulge his passion as a correspondent, and I am not alone in having a thick file containing many of his letters, in which he always had something positive and encouraging to say. He also wrote many published articles, by invitation, and his article for UFAWin 2005 was one of his last and most important (17). His health declined after Claire died in January 1999, and by 2005 he was chronically ill, getting tired, and unable to stray far from home. In a letter to me in August 2005, he said, "I really hope this is my swan song about the Three Rs. I'm getting fed up with endlessly repeating myself, and would like to hand over to people like you, who are still advancing the subject and can say something new" (18). Then, in June 2006, he wrote, "A couple Xll

of minor spells in hospital are making me feel my age, and more than ever do I hope I won't have to write any more long repetitive papers on the Three Rs!" (19). W.M.S.R.died of septicaemia on 27 July 2006, when the world of the Three Rslost a renowned source of inspiration, who deeply affected the lives of many of us, who was great fun to be with, and with whom to correspond was always a delight (20). Like R.L.B.,he had a boyish and infectious enthusiasm, which was able to survive all kinds of trials and tribulations. One of the proudest moments in my life was standing beside him on the occasion of the Declaration of Bologna in the Aula Magna of the University of Bologna in August 1999 (21 ): Theparticipants in the 3rd World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences strongly endorse and reaffirm the principles put forward by Russelland Burch in 1959. Humane science is a prerequisite for good science, and is best achieved in relation to laboratory animal procedures by the vigorous promotion and application of the Three Rs. The Three Rs should serve as a unifying concept, a challenge, and an opportunity for reaping benefits of every kind - scientific, economic and humanitarian.

The W.M.S.and ClaireRussellArchive The story of R.L.B.and W.M.S.R.did not end with their deaths in 1996 and 2006. Claire Russellwas a distinguished psychotherapist, author and poet, and much of her work was conducted in partnership with her husband. They bequeathed all their possessions, and the rights to all their publications, to Cleo Paskal, with whom they had protracted discussions about how their affairs should be handled after they had died. The house in Reading, in which they had lived since 1966, contained about 25,000 books and at least 1000 box files, as well as a wide variety of W.M.S.R.'s personal mementos, dating back as far as his time at boarding school in the 1930s. The files contained detailed chronicles and correspondence concerning his enormous breadth of activities over more than 60 years. Many of his letters were still in the envelopes in which they had been received. Cleo Paskalhas generously donated Claire and W.M.S.Russell'spapers to the University of Nottingham, as the basis for a W.M.S. and Claire RussellArchive which is now being established under the direction of Dorothy Johnston, the University's Keeper of Manuscripts and Special Xlll

Collections (22). Thus, over the years to come, much more will be revealed about the contributions ofW.M.S.R. and R.L.B.and the intriguing ways in which they came about.

Michael Balls

Aylmerton, Norfolk January 2009

References 1.

Darwin, C. (1859). The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. 6th edition (1888), Volume I, 365 pp., Volume 11,339 pp. London, UK: John Murray. 2. Annett, B. (1995). The Fund for the Replacement of Animals In Medical Experiments (FRAME):the first 25 years. ATLA 23, 19-32. 3. Russell,W.M.S.& Burch, R.L.(1959). The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. 238 pp. London, UK: Methuen. 4. Russell,W.M.S.& Burch, R.L.(1959). The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. Available online at Altweb: http://altweb.jhsph.edu/publications/humane_exp/het-toc.htm 5. Smyth, D. ( 1978). Alternatives to Animal Experimentation. 218 pp. London, UK: Scolar Press. 6. Russell,W.M.S.(1996). In: RexLeonard Burch (1926-1996). ATLA 24, 313316. 7. Paskal,C. (2006). Bill Russell:the singing scientific detective. ATLA 34, 470472. 8. Russell,W.M.S. (1995). W.M.S. Russellspeech at the Awards Luncheon. In: The World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences: Education, Research, Testing (ed. AM. Goldberg & L.F.M.van Zutphen), pp. 71-80. New York, NY,USA: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 9. Balls, M. (1994). A day with Rex Burch. FRAMENews 36, 1. 10. Russell,W.M.S. & Burch, R.L.(1995). Prefatory note. ATLA 23, 11-13. 11. Burch, R.L. (1995). The progress of human experimental technique since 1995. ATLA23, 776-783 12. Balls,M., Goldberg, AM., Fentem,J.H., Broadhead, C.L.,Burch, R.L.,Festing, M.F.W.,Frazier,J.M., Hendriksen, C.F.M.,Jennings,M., van der Kamp, M.D.O., Morton, D.B., Rowan, AN., Russell, C., Russell, W.M.S., Spielmann, H., Stephens, M.L., Stokes, W.S., Straughan, D.W.,Yager,J.D., Zurlo, J. & van Zutphen, B.F.M.(1995) The Three Rs: the way forward. The report and recommendations of ECVAMworkshop 11. ATLA 23, 838-866. xiv

13. Anon. (1995). Opening of Russell& Burch House. FRAMENews 37, 1 and 23-24. 14. Russell,W.M.S.( 1997). A festival of animals. In: Animal Alternatives, Welfare and Ethics (ed. L.M. van Zutphen & M. Balls), pp. 9-20. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Elsevier. 15. Russell, W.M.S. (2000). Forty years on. In: Progress in the Reduction, Refinement and Replacement of Animals Experimentation (ed. M. Balls, A-M. van Zeller & M.E. Halder), pp. 7-14. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier. 16. Russell,W.M.S. (1999). The progress of humane experimental technique. ATLA 27, 913-924. 17. Russell, W.M.S. (2005). The Three Rs: past, present and future. Animal Welfare 14, 279-286. 18. Russell,W.M.S. (2005). Letter to Michael Balls re the Nuffield Report. 10 August 2006. 19. Russell,W.M.S. (2006). Letter to Michael Balls re A Note on Refinement. 4 June 2006. 20. Paskal,C., Kirkwood, J., Stephens, M.L., Goldberg, AM., van Zutphen, B., Cervinkova, Z., Cervinka, M. & Balls, M. (2006). An appreciation of the life of Professor William Russell (26 March 1925-27 July 2006). ATLA 34, 460-487. 21. Anon. (2000). The Three RsDeclaration of Bologna. ATLA 28, 1-5. 22. Balls,M. (2008). ProfessorW.M.S. Russell(1925-2006): Doyen of the Three Rs. In: Proceedings of the 6th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences. MTEX 14, Special Issue, 1- 7.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am particularly grateful to Cleo Paskal,Claire and W.M.S. Russell'sLiterary Executor, for her permission to produce this abridged version of The Principles. Its non-profit production was funded by FRAME,with the support of Boots UK Limited (Nottingham), the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research (Hitchin, Hertfordshire), the Institute for In Vitro Sciences (Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA),the Marjorie Coote Animal CharityTrust (WhenbY,Yorkshire), the Mitchell Trust (Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire), and the William and Katherine Longman Charitable Trust (London). Tony Marson, 4 Sheets Design & Print, provided invaluable advice and expertise throughout. Gerard Duve, Michael Festing, Michelle Hudson, Rita Seabra and Susan Trigwell read all or parts of the manuscript and provided many useful suggestions. However, I accept full responsibility for any remaining deficiencies.

M.B. April Q009

Rex LeonardBurch and William Moy Statten Russell,at SheringhamTownHall on 30 May 1995,for the openingof the ECVAM workshopon The ThreeRs: The WciyForward. xvi

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