Ethical committee (in English only)

In most countries experiments involving humans or animals need to be approved by an ethical committee.

Ethical committees examining experiments involving human subjects will typically check that the human subjects involved have given informed consent to their participation in the experiment and are afforded an appropriate level of safety.

Committees dealing with animal experimentation will typically aim to ensure that there is a minimum of harm done to the animals relative to the potential benefit of the experiment.

A key test in this area is the 3Rs principle. This requires that as far as possible experimental techniques using live animals should be Replaced by techniques which do not use animals, that when animals are used their numbers should be Reduced as much as possible, and that the experiments should be Refined to minimize their negative impact on the animals.