When you hear the term ‘Animal Ethics Committee’ (AEC), what comes to mind? For many people, it sounds reassuring; a group of professionals sitting around a table discussing ethics, weighing up animal welfare, questioning harm, and ensuring animals are treated with dignity and care. It evokes the image of rigorous
2025 was a year of immense progress for non-animal models globally. Read Dr Natalie Anderson’s summary, reflecting on Australian and international highlights. Global Landscape The pace accelerated in 2025 for NAMs, bringing some massive shifts globally. The US released their Landmark Roadmap to Reducing Animal Testing in Preclinical Safety Studies,
Foetal Bovine Serum has long been used in Australian universities, research institutes and biotech companies, but comes with major scientific, ethical, and practical problems. Cell culture expert, Dr Katie Bashant Day, answers some key questions about the use and limitations of FBS, existing alternatives, and introduces a new animal-free alternative
In Part 1, we examined the structural barriers that can discourage students from raising ethical concerns about the use of animals in university courses. Some of these barriers included the weight of hierarchy, entrenched cultural norms and the subtle but powerful influence of peers. These forces are real, and they
Outdated Practices, Unacceptable Outcomes For centuries, surgical training in both human and veterinary medicine has relied on cadavers and live animals. Once the only options, these methods provided valuable insights, but they have always carried limitations alongside growing ethical concerns. Cadavers degrade, vary in condition, and cannot simulate live physiology.
Education at its best is not only the transfer of knowledge, but the widening of perspective – an invitation to expand our circles of care from self to community, to all sentient beings and to the planet we share. Yet for some students, this ideal meets a difficult reality. For
By Rachel Smith, CEO, Animal-Free Science Advocacy Presented at ANZCCART Conference 2025 In an age of increasing public scrutiny and ethical accountability, how institutions respond to concerns about animal research matters more than ever. Yet, too often, those responses come in the form of “stock replies”—standardised, predictable, and often superficial
IPV Animal Research Is Ethically Indefensible Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a form of sustained, coercive abuse involving power and control, often with devastating impacts on survivors’ autonomy and psychological wellbeing. It is paradoxical — even grotesque — to investigate such a subject by replicating coercion and harm on vulnerable
Since the AFSA-authored article ‘Rethinking the Three Rs: Growing Momentum Toward a New Gold Standard in Australian Research’ was published in August 2024, there has been a series of progressive events, funding announcements and developments in Australia. AFSA’s Science Outreach Consultant Dr Natalie Anderson shares them in our post-article publication
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