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Significance of Japanese Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods (JaCVAM) Establishment

Yasuo Ohno
Deputy Director-General
National Institute of Health Sciences

AATEX 11(1):1-3, 2005

Abstract
For the promotion of 3R's principles of alternative methods, EU and US established ECVAM and ICCVAM for the evaluation and validation of alternative methods, respectively. This is because reliability and relevance of alternative methods should be determined by intra- and inter-laboratory validation for their regulatory acceptance. Appropriate procedures of the validation and regulatory acceptance of alternative methods were recommended by OECD in 1996. It is difficult to prepare data to satisfy the requirement by single laboratory or company. Therefore, it is recommended to establish similar institute in Japan like Japanese Center for the validation of alternative methods (JaCVAM). However, there are not enough resources in Japan. It is necessary to cooperate with Japanese Society of Alternatives to Animal Experiments (JSAAE) and Japanese industry group like Japanese Cosmetic Industry Association (JCIA). JSAAE is the only scientific community that is specified to research on alternatives. It has been contributing to the communication between scientists and animal protection groups during these 20 years. Research group supported by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has been cooperating with JSAAE to develop and evaluate new alternative methods. We are expecting that the establishment of JaCVAM will contribute to the valid alternative test methods originated in Japan.

Key words:Japanese Society of Alternatives to Animal Experiments (JSAAE), Japanese Center for the validation of alternative methods (JaCVAM), Japanese Cosmetic Industry Association (JCIA), alterna-tive methods, validation.
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(AATEX: Altern. Animal Test. EXperiment.: Alternatives to Animal Testing and EXperimentation)