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DESCRIBING progress with a review of the RCVS's guidance on feline renal transplants, David Catlow, chairman of the RCVS Standards Committee, said that the Council was being asked to advise on what the next steps should be.
The guidance has been suspended while it is under review. It was originally developed and approved by the RCVS Council in 2003 but, in April 2013, the Standards Committee was asked to review the College's position on renal transplants, primarily due to major changes in UK animal welfare legislation.
Mr Catlow explained that, as part of the review, the Standards Committee had sought legal opinion as well as advice from the RCVS's Science Advisory Panel on scientific and ethical issues relating to feline renal transplantation.
The legal opinion had pointed out that there were differences between the legislation in place in the different countries of the UK, particularly in relation to prohibited procedures and what constituted a 'mutilation'. It was possible that the organ harvesting procedure from a living source could breach aspects of the law in some countries but not others. However, the opinion was clear that, in all jurisdictions, there would be a significant risk that an offence of unnecessary suffering would be committed if a living source was used. It suggested that, if the RCVS felt that the use of pre-euthanasia donors was ethically acceptable, then the College could apply to the Home Office for an exemption from the legislation.
The Science Advisory Panel had recommended that the RCVS should not support the use of living source donors on the basis of the legal opinion. However, it said there was no scientific or ethical reason for the RCVS not to permit, with suitable safeguards, renal transplantation in cats from pre-euthanasia donors, although there might be legal argument in some parts of the UK that the procedure might constitute mutilation, and this issue needed to be resolved.
Asking for the Council's views, Mr Catlow said that the Standards Committee had accepted the advice that the use of a living donor in feline renal transplantation was not acceptable, but that use of a pre-euthanasia donor gave rise to further questions. Technically, such animals were not dead, so, strictly, their use would be illegal. There were also ethical...