Animal research at the University of Wisconsin has been no stranger to controversy in recent years with claims from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals alleging violations of multiple animal safety regulations.
This week, a Dane County committee voiced an opinion on the animal research discourse, voting to postpone an opposing resolution to a new study indefinitely.
The resolution, backed by Dane County Board Supervisor Al Matano, District 11, called for the university to stop an anxiety study that involves rhesus macaques, a breed of monkey.
“It’s a particularly sadistic batch of experiments,” Matano said. “It’s a kind of extreme measure to come up with one more drug for a class that already has a number of drugs in it.”
The experiment, proposed by UW Psychiatry Department chairman Ned Kalin, aims to determine what genes and chemicals act in the brain in animals with anxiety. It involves two groups of rhesus macaques, one group raised by their mothers, and the other raised in incubators and by researchers.
The expectation is that the monkeys brought up without their mothers would develop mild anxiety and behave differently in evaluative tests over the course of the experiment, Eric Sandgren, director of the UW Research Animal Resources Center, said. At the end of the study, Sandgren said the monkeys are euthanized so that biochemical changes in the brains of the animals can be analyzed.
Dane County Board Supervisor Sharon Corrigan, who chaired of the committee that voted on the resolution Monday, said the decision did not go without some debate.
“I think that, because the county doesn’t do this research and has no authority over the research, there was a hesitancy to be making a statement on this research,” Corrigan said.
Because of the nature of the project, Sandgren said he was not surprised by opposition from the public. The project was controversial in the UW research department as well, but he said modifications were made until it was accepted by his colleagues.
“We had a lot of internal scrutiny,” Sandgren said. “It’s just very logical then to expect that if it’s controversial within our committees, then it’s going to be controversial outside too.”
Sandgren said he does not have a problem with the public discussion of the experiment, but said he has a problem with this particular resolution because “some parts of it are false.”
Sandgren said the resolution stated there was no hope for human benefit and the methods were unethical, but he said it is a necessary process for how basic research moves forward.
“In this case, there was no other way to get this information. You can’t look for them by MRI, you have to know what they are first,” Sandgren said. “Given the amount of harm, given the potential benefits and the lack of alternatives, I believe it is ethical.”
Leland Pan, Dane County Board Supervisor, District 5, said he wants to see the resolution brought back into discussion.
Pan said he is hesitant to commit one way or another until all the arguments are heard. No matter what, he said he thinks there is going to be a lot of unintentional exaggeration on both sides.
“I want this to be in the light and for it to come to a vote one way or another, just so we have a conversation,” Pan said.
Correction: The resolution opposing the study was postponed indefinitely, not the study itself.
