Pain management in laboratory animals is a welfare-critical requirement that is often inadequately implemented. Improving anaesthesia and analgesia standards reduces suffering without compromising research quality.
Analgesic underuse in laboratory animal surgery represents one of the most significant and correctable welfare failures in biomedical research. The barriers to adequate pain management are primarily knowledge and cultural rather than practical: effective analgesics are available, inexpensive and relatively easy to administer. Researcher concern that analgesics will confound results is often based on outdated evidence; modern studies show that pain itself causes greater confounding through stress-axis activation than most appropriately dosed analgesics. Institutional culture that treats pain management as optional rather than mandatory is the primary driver of underuse. Formal pain assessment training, grimace scale protocols and institutional oversight by veterinarians with appropriate authority to require analgesia are the most effective interventions.