The number and complexity of research activities have seen a considerable growth in the recent years. This fosters a number of ethical questions concerning the planning, execution, assessment and publication of results of research projects involving human beings. In an effort to conform the research practices to these changes, the Institutional Review Board of PUCRS was created on May 17, 1990, the first to be in accordance with the norms and guidelines of Brazil.
On Dec 12, 2012, CNS Resolution No. 466/12 of the National Health Council revoked Resolutions CNS No. 196/96, 303/2000 and 404/2008. According to the new resolution “All research involving human beings should be submitted to a Research Ethics Committee.” The Terms and Definitions defines ethics committees in research as interdisciplinary and independent colleges of public relevance, of an advisory, deliberative and educational character, created to defend the research subjects’ interests in their integrity and dignity and to contribute to the development of research within ethically correct standards.
Recently, on Apr 7, 2016, the National Health Council published the CNS Resolution No. 510, which deals with the norms applicable specifically to research in Humanities and Social Sciences whose methodological procedures involve and use data directly obtained with participants or identifiable information that may carry greater risks than those existing in everyday life.
The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (CEUA) arose from the need to set guidelines for the ethical use of non-human animals at PUCRS. The committee is a multidisciplinary agency that sets norms and guidelines and has an educational and advisory role which is intended to encourage the reflection on the use of these animals in teaching and scientific research.
The CEUA-PUCRS actions are anchored in the principles stated in international norms and are intended to shed light into the national norms on animal use. CEUA’s actions are in accordance with the institution’s Reference Framework designed by the Ethics Committee for the Scientific and Technological Development of PUCRS (CEDECIT) which endorses the investigations and scientific development of the projects that ensure the promotion and protection of human beings when it comes to their dignity, life and the environment.
CEUA’s attributions include an assessment of the research protocols and lesson plans that include animal use as well as the sanctioned projects. Ethics in animal use will be ensure by the assessment of the scientific relevance of the procedure that justifies the use of animals, by the concern with the minimization of pain and animal suffering through adequate analgesics, anesthesia and euthanasia, by the conduction of previous statistical designs, by the attention to the basic conditions of maintenance of animal life and the encouragement to the replacement of non human animal by alternative methods whenever possible.