The Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC) International is a nonprofit group that promotes the humane treatment of animals in science through voluntary accreditation and assessment programs.
The organisation has assessed more than 850 companies, universities, hospitals, government agencies and other research group, including Frontage, Porsolt and GVK.
Another CRO AAALAC works with is the US unit of Japan’s Shin Nippon Biomedical Labs, whose animal resources director – David Reim – set the news in context.
“AAALAC accreditation reaffirms SNBL’s commitment to provide the most humane and appropriate care to all animals in our charge,” he said.
Reim added that: “With our rigorous animal care program and compassionate and experienced team members, we work diligently to assure clients and our community that we take our animal care responsibilities seriously.”
The accreditation – which covers animals welfare, socialisation, enrichment, housing as well as staff training – is evidence that the efforts SNBL USA has made in this area in recent months has been worth it.
Since May this year SNBL has resolved the problems that earned its Everett facility an US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning letter in 2010 and invested in housing for its test animals – which included ‘enrichment tunnels’ to enable them to socialise more freely.
More recently the contract research organisation (CRO) has invested in a brand new environment control system at the facility to increase both the efficiency of operations and better safeguard the safety of animals used in research.