Dead as a dodo: applying harm-benefit analysis and the 3R principles to animal studies of homeopathy

Animals can only be used in research when there is a convincing scientific justification, when the expected benefits of the research outweigh the potential risks in terms of animal suffering and when the scientific objectives cannot be achieved using non-animal alternative methods. Researchers must also apply the 3R principles-replace, reduce and refine-to ensure that animals are used ethically in research. All research involving animals must have been reviewed and approved by an ethics committee prior to commencing the study; the harm-benefit analysis (HBA) is the cornerstone of ethical evaluation, as it will determine if the use of animals is justified.In this paper, we apply the 3R principles (refine, reduce, replace) and HBA used in regulation of animal research to veterinary studies of homeopathy and provide an ethical analysis of such studies. It emerges that proper application of the 3Rs and HBA effectively rules out any homeopathy research in animals.