"How the heck are you going to inspect this mammoth place," he says, walking past two animal technicians who are unloading a new shipment of rats into small opaque plastic boxes. "The MSPCA inspects but they don't really do anything. They just walk through the building to see if the animals are all right. He's the only one who's close to them. He takes care of them everyday. You could torture thousands of mice and no one would know but the technician," he adds.

Charlwood opens the door to a room containing farm-bred beagles. The beagles respond to the intruders with what sounds like muffled barking, for, unlike pound dogs, farm-bred dogs are de-barked (their vocal cords are several automatically by the breeder. These beagles will probably be used in long-term experiments, but over 50 per cent of the experiments, involving dogs at Harvard are acute.

Although repeal of pound seizure will reduce the number of dogs used in research laboratories, the bill will not affect the root of the problem--the continued funding of repetitive and often unnecessary experiments by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other funding institutions. Harvard, which receives over $40 million from NIH annually, relies almost exclusively on NIH's peer review committee (comprised solely of researchers) to screen out repetitive research proposals. In sharp contrast to experiments involving human subjects, where Harvard considers all possible risks to the subject, Dr. Hunt and Harvard's Animal Care Committee merely check to see if proper anaesthesia will be used and if there is sufficient space available in ARC. Unlike Harvard's ethics committee (which reviews research involving humans), there are no lay-people on the animal care committee. And neither NIH nor Harvard cross-examines the researcher to determine if all possible alternatives to animals have been properly considered.

"In contrast to studies involving humans, which are limited in number, there are hundreds of studies submitted each year involving animals," Dr. Hunt says. "It is impossible to review animal research proposals with the same scrutiny as human research. And the majority don't need to be scrutinized," he adds. "They involve rats and mice. And those are simply going to be approved."

Hunt argues the NIH peer review system is the best possible mechanism to prevent repetitive and unnecessary experiments. However, in recent years, there has been growing belief within the scientific community that scientists can no longer justify their monopoly on decisions pertaining to the scientific community.

Scientists can not automatically assume the members of the peer review committee will be aware of all the work being done in their field and will thus be able to prevent repetitive experiments, Barbara Orlans, President of the Scientists' Center for Animal Welfare and executive secretary of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Advisory Council at NIH, says. "It takes a long time for scientific knowledge to disseminate," she explains. "Very often scientists arrive at the same answer working at different ends of the country. And then, of course, the experiment has to be repeated and validated before it will be accepted."

Orlans contends the most effective way to curb the excesses associated with animal experimentation is not through more legislation, but through increased lay-person participation in the funding process, and by educating medical students on the ethical use of animals. At present, 14 universities offer courses on ethics and animals--Harvard does not.

"In the end I think scientists should be more accountable for the research that goes on in labs," she says. "It would be ideal to have lay-people on the research proposal committees at research institutions. This is done in Canada but is rarely done here. But scientists feel very threatened that anti-vivisectionists are going to come in and mess things up," she explains. "It will take decades to get full lay-person involvement."

In the meantime, both Orlans and Hunt agree economic considerations are the primary limiting factor on the use of animals. Although repeal of pound seizure will have little long-term effect on the use of animals in experiments, the dramatic increase in the price of dogs will force researchers to reevaluate the number of dogs they are using--and provide a strong economic incentive to develop alternative research methods.