USDA Categories of Manipulation

[B] Animals to be bred, conditioned, or held for use in teaching, testing, experiments, research or surgery but not yet used for such purposes. (No Euthanasia)

Additional Notes: These animals are not being used for any research procedure, however minor. Category B is the place to put vendor purchased or in-house bred breeding animals that will not be tail tipped. Animals must not have a phenotype that causes pain, or undergo any experimental procedure, including feeding studies, weighing or other handling, and euthanasia. Animals would have to be transferred to the C pain category prior to euthanasia. This pain category would be appropriate for a protocol where no activity occurs other than the basic husbandry needed to maintain the animals.

Examples:

  • Basic husbandry needed to maintain the animal
  • Breeding animals and offspring not on experimental protocols
  • Aging studies with natural death as an endpoint
  • Field observation without trapping or manipulation of the environment
  • No experimental manipulation of any type (including “pain free” activities like feeding studies, weighing, restraint for collection of bodily fluids, etc...)
  • No euthanasia

[C] Animals upon which teaching, research, experiments, or tests are conducted involving no pain, distress, or use of pain relieving drugs. (A painful procedure is defined by the USDA as any procedure that would reasonably be expected to cause more than slight or momentary pain and/or distress in a human being to which that procedure is applied.)

Additional Notes: Category C animals are not subjected to procedures that involve pain or distress or would require the use of pain-relieving drugs. Routine procedures such as injections and blood sampling from veins that produce only mild, transient pain or discomfort are reported in this category. Another example of a category C procedure is an observational study of animal behavior in the wild. Animals that are euthanized before tissue collection or other manipulation are also placed in this category, if no other procedure is performed to place them in a higher pain/distress category.

Examples:

  • AVMA approved methods of euthanasia (no previous painful or distressful procedures experienced)
  • Behavior training
  • Change in environmental parameters (light cycle, temperature, etc.)
  • Euthanasia followed by organ/tissue/cell harvest (no previous painful or distressful procedures experienced)
  • Food restriction that reduces animals weight by no more than 15-20%
  • Identification techniques (tattoo, ear tag, ear notching)
  • Injections/blood collection
  • Live capture/release of field animals
  • Non-surgical collection of body fluids (urine, feces, milk)
  • Polyclonal antibody production (non-ascites, no footpad injections)
  • Routine agricultural husbandry practices
  • Special diet which does not result in appreciable clinical signs of pain/distress
  • Tail tipping without analgesia

[D] Animals upon which experiments, teaching, research, surgery, or tests are conducted involving accompanying pain or distress to the animals and for which appropriate anesthetic, analgesic, or tranquilizing drugs are used.

Additional Notes: Category D animals are those subjected to potentially painful procedures for which anesthetics, analgesics, or tranquilizers will be used.

Examples:

  • Anesthesia for non-invasive procedures (blood collection, imaging or tail tipping)
  • Antibody production by inducing ascites, with analgesics
  • Drug addiction or giving drugs that will cause clinical signs that will be alleviated
  • Exposure of blood vessels for catheter implantation
  • Exsanguination with anesthesia
  • Genetically engineered phenotype that causes pain or distress that will be alleviated
  • Induction of Illness that causes clinical signs that will be alleviated
  • Non-survival surgical procedures
  • Physical trauma
  • Primate tattooing performed for identification under anesthesia
  • Prolonged restraint of conscious animals for purposes other than routine clinical procedures
  • Survival surgery under local anesthesia
  • Rodent retro-orbital eye bleeding performed under anesthesia
  • Survival surgery conducted with appropriate anesthesia and postoperative analgesia
  • Studies utilizing hazardous materials in live animals
  • Terminal surgery under anesthesia
  • Terminal perfusion with anesthesia
  • Tumor burden or cancer studies, with palliative therapy
  • Ultraviolet light exposure to cause a "sunburn" with appropriate analgesia

[E] Animals upon which teaching, experiments, research, surgery or tests are conducted involving accompanying pain or distress to the animals and for which the use of appropriate anesthetic, analgesic, or tranquilizing drugs will adversely affected the procedures, results or interpretations of the teaching, research, experiments surgery or tests.

Additional Notes: Significant scientific justification is required for using this category.

Examples:

  • Any procedure for which needed analgesics, tranquilizers, sedatives, or anesthetics must be withheld for justifiable study purposes
  • Application of noxious stimuli such as electrical shock that the animal cannot avoid/escape
  • Death as an endpoint
  • Exposure to extreme environmental conditions
  • Ocular or skin irritancy testing
  • Paralysis or immobilization of a conscious animal
  • Deprivation of food and/or water intake beyond what is necessary for normal pre-surgical preparation
  • Toxicological or microbiological testing, cancer research or infectious disease research that requires continuation after clinical symptoms are evident without medical relief