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UW: No animal research abuse
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by Ken Harris
Friday, January 25, 2008
University of Wisconsin officials responded Thursday to allegations that the university was cited for mistreating animals used for research.
Eric Sandgren, director of UW Research Animals Resource Center, said the inspection reports obtained by Stop Animal Exploitation Now were routine documents, and the university receives multiple similar reports every year.
According to Sandgren, UW is inspected every year by the United States Department of Agriculture for “quality control.”
“The USDA tells us what we could be doing better,” Sandgren said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve broken the law.”
Sandgren said the concerns USDA had with UW simply involved the level of detail provided in two of the protocols used.
Sandgren said protocols are the descriptions of how animals will be used by researchers, who must get their protocol approved by UW’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee before they can begin any experiments.
Michael Budkie, executive director of SAEN, said UW failed to give a scientific reason for not giving painkillers to animals involved in painful experiments and that the university was “not following their own protocol.”
“What else are they lying about?” Budkie said.
According to Sandgren, there was a legitimate reason for not giving the animals painkillers. “There were scientific reasons; it’s just that we did not have them in the protocol,” Sandgren said.
The same protocol did not mention the neutering procedure of neutered cats. Sandgren said this was not included in the protocol because it was done for clinical reasons, not experimental ones. He said the cats were neutered because they were housed together to be in a social setting.
Sandgren said all work was stopped after the inspections until the protocols were amended. In addition, he added, the lines of communication between researchers and lab animal veterinarians have been improved to ensure everything is properly recorded and reported.
According to Sandgren, all the concerns on the June 2007 report have been addressed and reinspected by the USDA.
“They complimented us on the job we had done,” Sandgren said. “They thought we addressed it very well.”
Sandgren said no process that involves working with animals or humans is perfect. He said the inspection reports are very useful to UW.
“We use them as tools,” Sandgren said. “[Budkie] uses them as statements to condemn us.”
Anonymous (January 25, 2008 @ 10:48pm):
Universities may welcome the economic benefits animal research labs bring, but there is little serious discussion of the ethical issues involved or much attention paid to the investigations that have exposed the cruelty practiced in facilities across the country.
Researchers all insist, of course, that their policy is to treat animals humanely. But abuse is pervasive and well-documented, though the public rarely hears about it.
As Matthew Scully, former assistant and speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote in
Dominion:
'In its current form...the AWA [Animal Welfare Act] is a collection of hollow injunctions, broad loopholes, and light penalties when there are any at all...'
And in Fear Factories:
...[our cruelty statutes] "address mostly random or wanton acts of cruelty. And the persistent animal-welfare questions of our day center on institutional cruelties - on the vast and systematic mistreatment of animals that most of us never see."
But there is a simpler argument that testing is either morally or scientifically dubious: The animals must be a great deal like us for the results to be scientifically unproblematic, but very different from us in order to be morally unproblematic. When we want scientifically useful results, the more like us they are, the better. When we want clear consciences over causing disease, suffering, and death to innocent creatures, the more like us the animals are, the worse. We cannot have it both ways?
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