Severity degree 3 experiments

5. Assignment of severity grade

A severity grade is always assigned before the start of the experiment (prospective classification). The researchers here must give the highest possible stress that could occur during an experiment. But what is crucial for the actual stress to which the animals are exposed is not the prospective classification, but how the animals react to a procedure. After the experiment, therefore, the studies are evaluated and each animal is assigned to the severity grade that it actually experienced in the experiment (retrospective classification).

If an animal dies during an experiment, the experiment is automatically classed as severity grade 3. This also applies if an animal dies a natural death in an experiment classed as severity grade 0. Since this possibility always exists, a ban on severity 3 experiments would be equivalent to a ban on all animal experiments and thus a de facto research ban.