The Third FRAME Toxicity Committee: Working Toward Greater Implementation of Alternatives in Toxicity Testing

Robert D. Combes, Michael Balls, Lee Bansil, Martin Barratt,David Bell, Philip Botham, Caren Broadhead, Richard Clothier, Elizabeth George, Julia Fentem, Michael Jackson, Ian Indans, George Loizou, Vyra Navaratnam, Victor Pentreath, Barry Phillips, Henry Stemplewski and Jane Stewart

FRAME (the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments; http://www.frame.org.uk) is a scientific charity, which has, for over 30 years, been advocating and conducting its own research on the application of the Three Rs (reduction, refinement and replacement) to animal experimentation. FRAME develops and validates scientifically based replacement alternative methods to facilitate their acceptance by scientists and regulators. As part of these activities, FRAME established a FRAME Toxicity Committee in 1979, and a report of its work was published in 1982, and discussed in the proceedings of a subsequent meeting, published in 1983. A Second Toxicity Committee formed in 1988, reported its work in 1990, which was discussed in the proceedings of a subsequent conference, published in 1991. The work of these committees was extremely successful and influential in laying the foundation for later activities in alternatives research. A Third FRAME Toxicity Committee was formed in 1999, since much progress had been achieved in the previous decade, especially with regard to the successful validation of several nonanimal replacement methods and the start of their regulatory acceptance. Moreover, some new test methods are on the point of being validated, and many new techniques and discoveries are impacting on toxicity testing. Also, interest in reduction and refinement in toxicology has increased. However, there is considerable scope and need for the furth