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Animal Experimentation in PTSD Update
Using the NIH database as the source, it was determined the total amount spent on research for PTSD involving animal experimentation for the 2019 fiscal year was $15.3 million, representing a slight increase from the 2016 fiscal year.
Animal Experimentation in PTSD
- The NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools (RePORT) states the amount spent on research into PTSD in 2019 was $138 million. This funded 292 research projects.
- The 292 publicly funded research projects were evaluated further to determine the number which involved animal experimentation. Changes to the NIH RePORT search capabilities meant that each project needed to be reviewed and evaluated separately.
- Of the 292 research projects in 2019, 33 involved animals and animal testing. This equates to 11.3% of the 2019 research projects.
- Research projects involving animals received $15,340,976 in public funding in 2019. This equates to 11.1% of the funds allocated.
- The percentage of research projects involving animal testing has increased from 7% in 2016 to 11.3% in 2019.
- The actual amount of funding spent on research involving animals is up marginally from $14.9 million to $15.3 million.
- As with the 2017 research, the research projects analyzed do not include all VA funded projects, the majority of which are funded intramurally. It incorporates only the VA research projects that involved extramural funding.
- The above figures have been arrived at through the analysis of the project abstracts and keywords of each of the projects provided in the category spend. Some appeared to be ambiguous and did not directly state whether animals were involved.
Research Strategy
It was our initial intention to replicate the 2017 project with data from 2019. However, it appears that the RePORT database has been redesigned in the interim and this was not possible. We have, therefore, used the list of projects in the category spend for PTSD as a starting point and evaluated the information attached to each of the projects listed to determine the animal testing figures.
Where the study listed animal modeling, we attempted to ascertain whether these were previously established models or whether the research was developing its own models. Research using historic models was excluded.
Without access to the project budgets, we were unable to ascertain how much of the allocated funding for each project was used specifically on animal testing.
The 292 projects identified represent all NIH active projects relating to PTSD.