I just heard from Patrice Sutton, one of the architects of the Navigation Guide, that a new study has been published ahead of print in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) addressing the long-standing debate about how to assess weight of evidence for environmental chemicals and other hazards, and the use of animal evidence in this process.
She says: “The report is a first step in addressing the very large gap in developing quality assessment instruments for evaluating the animal toxicology literature.”
This systematic review “is innovative in that it takes a multidisciplinary perspective and integrates animal research assessment instruments from ecology, toxicology and clinical sciences”, says Dr. Lisa Bero, professor and lead researcher of the study.
The study evaluated thirty published quality assessment instruments and highlights a number of risk of bias assessment criteria that have been empirically tested for animal research including randomization, concealment of allocation, blinding and accounting for all animals. The study further reveals the need for empirically testing additional methodological criteria, and assessing the validity and reliability of a standard risk of bias assessment instrument.
The study is here: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/