Final answer:
U.S. biomedical research involving animals is governed by the Animal Welfare Act and the Public Health Service Policy, with Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) overseeing the ethical treatment of animals in research. The Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) regulates veterinary products ensuring safety in food supply.
Step-by-step explanation:
Regulations for the humane treatment of animals in biomedical research in the United States are primarily overseen by two main laws: the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (PHS Policy). The AWA mandates that researchers must consider alternative methods in procedures that may cause distress or pain to animals, while the PHS Policy, although not a law, requires all research facilities receiving federal funding to have an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) to review animal research proposals. This committee ensures that experiments involving non-human animals meet certain ethical and welfare standards, including the requisition that one of the committee members must be a veterinarian and another an independent member with no affiliation to the institution.
In addition to these regulations, the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), a branch of the FDA, focuses on regulating veterinary products like medications used in food animals, ensuring they do not affect the human food supply, as well as implementing FDA's requirements to prevent the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy through inspections of feed manufacturers. The subject of animal welfare in medical research is complex, involving stringent regulatory frameworks to ensure ethical treatment of animals, as well as community involvement in oversight through committees such as the IACUC.