Russell & Burch book published; first enunciated the "Three Rs."

Lawson Tait Trust (UK)—first research fund to support scientific development of alternatives.

Littlewood Committee Report (UK)—reported that little would be gained by paying special attention to alternatives.

USA—United Action for Animals, animal group that campaigned specifically for replacement alternatives.

FRAME (UK)—new group to promote the idea of alternatives to the scientific community.

Lord Dowding Fund (UK)—new fund established to support alternatives research.

Council of Europe Resolution 621—suggested that an alternatives database be established. This was the first significant government initiative or recommendation on alternatives.

USA—National Academy of Sciences Meeting—first major scientific meeting on the idea of alternatives in the U.S.

Netherlands Animal Protection Law included a specific section on alternatives that has now grown into a program where the government provides hundreds of thousands of dollars to support alternatives research.

FRAME Meeting at the Royal Society on Alternatives in Drug Development and Testing, London—first big scientific meeting on alternatives in Europe.

Smyth book examining alternatives published. (Smyth was president of the UK Research Defense Society, established to support animal research.)

USA—HR 4805: Research Modernization Act—introduced by UAA (see above) directing that 30–50% of animal research funding be reallocated for alternatives. Gained wide public support and forced Congress to start to take an interest in the subject.

Sweden established $90,000 in Government funding for alternatives—first government funding for alternatives.

USA—Henry Spira launches the Draize Campaign—this campaign against rabbit eye irritancy testing is credited with establishment of a Rockefeller University alternatives research project (using $750,000 from Revlon) and the establishment of CAAT.

New England Antivivisection Society gives $100,000 for alternatives research on tissue culture and a second animal-welfare consortium provides $176,000 for chorio-allantoic membrane (CAM) test development.

USA—Johns Hopkins University Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) established with $1 million fund from cosmetics industry (Avon and Bristol-Myers Squibb are leading donors—result of Draize campaign).

Swiss animal legislation—specifically requires consideration of alternatives.

USA—Colgate Palmolive provides $300,000 to investigate chick chorio-allantoic membrane (CAM) system.

Switzerland provides SFr 2 million over two years for alternatives research.

FDA formally announces that they no longer require classical LD50 data.

FRAME (UK) receives £160,000 from Home Office. First UK government funding for alternatives research.

Health Research Extension Act (USA) is passed requiring NIH to develop a plan for alternatives.

Animal Welfare Act Amendments (USA) are passed that require greater attention to alternatives in research that causes pain and distress.

Index Medicus adds a subject heading: Alternatives to Animal Testing.

European Research Group on Alternatives to Toxicity Testing (ERGATT) is formed.

The UK's Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act replaces the 1876 Act.

The U.S. Congress's Office of Technology Assessment issues a landmark report, "Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing and Education."

The Council of Environmental Ministers of the European Community enacts EC Directive 86/609, requiring that member countries develop legislation promoting the Three Rs.

An FDA survey reports a 96% decrease in the use of the classic LD50 tests in 1985 compared with the period 1975–1979.

Two new cell toxicology journals emphasizing non-animal methods, Toxicology in Vitro and Molecular Toxicology, are established.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announces changes in its guidelines for acute oral and dermal toxicity and starts to discuss alternatives.

British Industrial Biological Research Association (BIBRA) increases funding of alternatives research to £700,000 per annum.

The Industrial In Vitro Toxicology Society (IVTS) is established in the United Kingdom.

The HSUS publishes an analysis of the historical importance of alternative methods in biomedical-awarded Nobel Prizes.

The Dutch Alternatives to Animal Experiments Platform is established with participation from government, industry, and animal welfare organizations.

In Vitro Toxicology: A Journal of Molecular and Cellular Toxicology is established.

The Swiss Foundation "Finanzpool 3 R" is established with one million Swiss francs to support alternatives research.

A government/industry workshop is held on alternatives to ocular irritancy testing, to review the Soap and Detergent Association's Alternatives Program.

The Industrial In Vitro Toxicology Group holds its first meeting.

The U.S. Republican presidential platform encourages the implementation of alternatives to animal testing.

The J.F. Morgan Foundation for Alternatives Research is established in Canada.

The Swiss government's Office for Animal Experiments and Alternatives is established.

The Center for the Documentation and Evaluation of Alternative Methods to Animal Experiments, known by its German acronym ZEBET, is established in Germany.

Procter & Gamble announces it is contributing $450,000 per year for three years to its University Animal Alternative Research Program.

Avon announces that it will no longer use the Draize Test.

The Second International Conference on Practical In Vitro Toxicology is held in the United Kingdom.

The Swedish Fund for Scientific Research without Animal Experiments invests 700,000 Swedish krona in alternative projects.

The American Anti-Vivisection Society establishes the Demeter Fund (later known as the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation) to support non-animal research, funding up to $50,000 annually for one or more projects.

CAAT and ERGATT hold a workshop on validation of alternative methods.

The University of California Alternatives Center is established at UC-Davis.

The Platform for Alternatives to Animal Experiments in the Netherlands allocates the equivalent of $700,000 annually for the promotion and validation of research into the Three Rs and the improvement of housing and care systems.

The Japanese Society for Alternatives to Animal Experimentation begins publishing the journal AATEX (Alternatives to Animal Testing and Experimentation).

The Interagency Regulatory Alternatives Group holds a workshop, "Eye Irritation Testing Alternatives: Proposals for Regulatory Consensus," in Washington, D.C.

The HSUS presents Alan Goldberg, director of CAAT, with the first Russell and Burch Award, established to recognize scientists who have made outstanding contributions to alternative methods.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) accepts the Fixed Dose Procedure as an alternative to the LD50 Test.

Representatives of regulatory agencies in Japan, Europe, and the United States agree to drop the classic LD50 as a required measure of acute toxicity.

The UK Home Office announces a grant program for the funding of alternatives research.

The Second Report of the FRAME Toxicity Committee is published in ATLA.

The Swiss Institute for Alternatives to Animal Testing (SIAT) is established in Zurich.

The European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) is established.

The European Parliament amends the Cosmetics Directive 76/768 to ban the marketing of cosmetics tested on animals after January 1, 1998 (a decision on the ban is later postponed until June 30, 2000).

CAAT hosts a tenth anniversary conference in Baltimore, Maryland, giving Founders' Awards to Dr. D.A. Henderson, the CTFA, and Henry Spira.

The NIH Revitalization Act directs the NIEHS to establish criteria for the validation and regulatory acceptance of alternative testing and to outline a process for regulatory review of potential alternative methods; it also directs the NIH director to establish an alternatives program and to report on its progress annually.

The first World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences: Education, Research and Testing takes place in Baltimore.

Member states of the European Union agree that everything possible should be done to achieve a 50% reduction in the use of vertebrate animals for experimentation and other scientific procedures by the year 2000.

The Interagency Regulatory Alternatives Group holds its second meeting on alternatives in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. government establishes the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM), co-chaired by William Stokes of NIEHS and Richard Hill of EPA, in response to the 1993 NIH Revitalization Act.

The Netherlands Centre for Alternatives to Animal Use (NCA) is established as a national information center on alternatives.

The Gillette Company and The HSUS launch a program to fund research and development of alternative methods; two methods of $50,000 each are awarded annually.

The second World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences is held in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

The OECD holds a workshop to develop internationally harmonized criteria on validation and regulatory acceptance.

CAAT, The HSUS, Procter & Gamble, and other organizations establish Altweb, a web site devoted to information on alternative methods.

ICCVAM issues guidelines on criteria for validation and regulatory acceptance of alternative methods.

The Institute for In Vitro Sciences is established in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

ECVAM accepts the following alternative methods: 3T3 NRU PT test as an alternative for assessing phototoxicity, TER (transepithelial electrical resistance) test, and Episkin and similar methods for assessing skin corrosivity.

ECVAM endorses in vitro methods as alternatives to the ascites methods for the production of monoclonal antibodies.

The National Toxicology Program Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM) is established to provide support to ICCVAM.

The third World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences is held in Bologna, Italy.

CAAT holds a TestSmart workshop to discuss alternatives to animal testing in the Environmental Protection Agency's High Production Volume (HPV) chemical testing program.

The EPA announces major changes in its HPV program, including funding for alternative methods, following the TestSmart workshop and negotiations with animal protection organizations.

ICCVAM endorses Corrositex for the assessment of skin corrosivity and the Murine Local Lymph Node Assay for the assessment of allergic contact dermatitis.

ICCVAM and NICEATM organize the International Workshop on In Vitro Methods for Assessing Acute Systemic Toxicity.

The OECD officially announces its plans to delete the LD50 Test (Test Guideline 401) from its testing guidelines, in favor of three alternative methods.

The ICCVAM Authorization Act is signed into law, changing ICCVAM's status from ad hoc committee to a permanent entity.

CAAT receives a donation of $900,000 to establish a grants program devoted to refinement alternatives.

The NIEHS suggests that the use of human and/or nonhuman animal cell lines for the screening of chemicals can reduce the need for animals in the acute systemic toxicity tests and may eventually replace a large amount of animal testing altogether.

Congress approves an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funding bill that appropriates $4 million for the development of non-animal test methods.

Two expert scientific panels nominated by the OECD approve an in vitro (non-animal) cell and tissue test as replacements for two internationally accepted animal tests used in assessing the phototoxicity and corrosivity of industrial chemicals.