Cui Bono? Characterisation of the benefit concept and the justificatory narratives in animal research ethics literature.
Volonteri Micol M, Grimm Herwig H
Harm-benefit analysis (HBA) is one pillar of Directive 2010/63/EU, which regulates the use of animals in biomedical research. Despite HBA's central role in legislation governing in vivo studies, its regulatory adequacy is often questioned. In particular, it is widely acknowledged that the proper implementation of HBA is hampered by the vagueness of current policies, especially those related to assessing benefit. This review examined how benefit is interpreted in HBA, reconstructing the most prominent views emerging from the current debate and their implications for scientific practice. It reviews recent literature on this topic to identify the main issues arising from the ambiguity of the benefit concept and then reflects on their impact on the regulatory process for animal research. The artificial intelligence tool ChatPDF was used to facilitate the analysis of the sources. The findings suggest three central considerations: (1) scarce value is attributed to the epistemic benefits of preclinical trials, (2) the ethical evaluation of in vivo project proposals should better account for experimental quality and validity, and (3) it is essential to bridge the growing gap between the scientific community and society by promoting public understanding and engagement with biomedicine to rebuild trust in research.