| Description |
Over the 50 years since they were first proposed, the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) have made a tremendous impact. These principles seem to unify concerns for better science with causing less harm to animals. The ideas behind the 3Rs are so intuitively compelling that it is tempting to believe that full implementation is merely a matter of time, and once the 3Rs are widely implemented, the public will fully support any continued laboratory animal use that is deemed necessary. In this paper, we argue that these conclusions are unlikely to be correct, in part because the 3Rs are rich in ambiguities, and any implementation requires resolving the dilemma that promoting one R will sometimes directly or indirectly conflict with promoting another. |