OLAW Webinar Promotes AAALAC, Describes ‘Value of Accreditation’

Although accreditation is voluntary and not required to conduct Public Health Service (PHS)-funded research using animals or to obtain federal funding, the HHS Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) devoted its most recent webinar to essentially making a pitch for accreditation by the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC).

The description of the Sept. 9 webinar, “What Every IACUC Should Know About AAALAC International,” stated that the purpose was to address an NIH notice issued this summer that suggested one way to reduce administrative burden was to repurpose some accreditation material into OLAW’s assurance documents.[1] OLAW and other agencies have been looking for strategies to reduce burden, as required by the 2016 Cures Act.

More specifically, the June 4 notice, NOT-OD-21-130, explains the option that assured institutions have to use sections of AAALAC’s program description “to complete parts” of an institution’s assurance submitted to OLAW.[2]

The webinar featured Jane Na, director of OLAW’s Division of Assurances, and Helen Diggs, AAALAC senior director. A portion of Diggs’ presentation was devoted to “myths vs. facts” about AAALAC and the “value of accreditation.”

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