Critical comment on the paper „Five years of difficult experiences with the Act of the protection of animals used for scientific or educational purposes dated of January 15, 2015”

Abstract

The authors criticize the claims relating to the functioning of the National Committee on Ethical Review of Animal Research made in the paper „Five years of difficult experiences with the Act of the protection of animals used for scientific or educational purposes dated of January 15, 2015” published in „Nauka” (3/2020) relating to the functioning of the National Ethics Committee on Animal Experimentation. The comment proves many statements of that paper blatantly false given either statistical data or legal regulations. It includes the duties of the National Ethics Committee, right of non-governmental organizations to participate in administrative proceedings, conflict of interest, and the approach of the National Ethics Committee to appeals from the decisions made by local committees. The authors prove that the paper’s suggestions of the alleged misconduct by the National Ethics Committee on Animal Experimentation are ill-founded and result from the poorly understood legal situation as well as lack of reference to relevant empirical data.