Online Issues

Journal Vol 49 (4)

A Guide to Risk Assessment in Animal Care and Use Programs: The Metaphor of the 3-Legged Stool

Richard C. Van Sluyters

Richard C. Van Sluyters, OD, PhD, is Professor and Associate Dean for Student Affairs of the School of Optometry as well as IACUC Chair at the University of California in Berkeley.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Richard C. Van Sluyters, 690 Minor Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2020 or email rcvs@berkeley.edu.

Abstract

A high-quality contemporary animal care and use program (ACUP) is a multifaceted dynamic system with three distinct organizational entities—the institutional official (IO), attending veterinarian (AV), and institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC)—each of whose authorities and responsibilities are mandated by a complex set of laws, regulations, policies, and guidelines. The 3-legged stool is presented here as a metaphor for the properly constituted and functioning ACUP, with the legs of the stool representing the IO, AV, and IACUC: when one component is weakened, the stool remains standing but tilts—the ACUP remains in compliance with animal welfare standards but is at risk of failure. Mechanisms for assessing an ACUP's strengths and weaknesses include both external evaluators, such as the US Department of Agriculture, Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, and Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, and internal evaluators, such as the IACUC, AV, and IO. However, each of these evaluators primarily assesses whether aspects of the ACUP are in compliance with current standards; they do not necessarily cite weaknesses in a compliant program. This article stresses the need for ACUPs to undertake a self-assessment of risk and outlines a number of ways programs can recognize their risks, with examples for each of the three components, which are characterized as either "weak" or "overzealous" in meeting their mandates. I caution against the use of a legacy of compliance as the sole means for evaluating an ACUP's strength, and instead promote the value of rigorous risk assessment/mitigation to ensure that a program is both strong and resilient.

Key Words: animal care and use program; attending veterinarian; compliance; institutional animal care and use committee; institutional official; 3-legged stool; postapproval monitoring; risk assessment