Inadequate analgesia after painful procedures remains one of the most widespread and remediable welfare failures in laboratory animal research worldwide.
The analgesic gap in laboratory animal research — the space between what pain relief is ethically required and what is actually provided — is one of the most actionable welfare problems in science. Animals undergoing surgical procedures and then denied appropriate pain relief experience suffering that has no scientific justification in most cases. The concern that analgesics will interfere with experimental results is legitimate but overstated; careful study design and analgesic selection can provide effective pain control without compromising data quality. Mandatory analgesia protocols, better training in pain recognition, and stronger enforcement of existing requirements would close this gap and prevent enormous amounts of unnecessary suffering.