Report identifies Stanford as 17th worst law violator for Aninal Care

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www.stanforddaily.com/article/2006/7/20/researchersDenyPoorAnimalCare

 

Researchers deny poor animal care

 

Report identifies Stanford as 17th worst law violator

July 20, 2006

By Jenny Allen

 

A report published last month by Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!

(SAEN), an organization opposing the abuse of animals in research

laboratories, ranked Stanford seventeenth in terms of the number of

Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations in 2005. With nine violations in

eleven months, Stanford was the only institution in the western U.S.

to make the top 20.

 

 

A representative of the Stanford Veterinary Service Center (VSC)

objects to the SAEN report that she says misrepresents animal

research by making the “most egregious, inaccurate statements.”

 

According to SAEN

 

SAENÂ’s conclusions are based on inspections conducted by the Animal

and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), a division of the U.S.

Department of Agriculture (USDA) that inspects facilities that use

animals in research. APHIS identified violations at Stanford in the

areas of veterinary care and primary enclosures, as well as the

UniversityÂ’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC),

which is responsible for enforcing the AWA and oversees animalsÂ’

living conditions.

 

“The violations are very serious in that they demonstrate that the

IACUC itself has no interest in following federal law,” said SAEN

Executive Director Michael Budkie.

 

According to Budkie, Stanford, like other research universities,

conducts highly invasive experiments that involve confining primates

to restraint chairs, depriving them of water and surgically attaching

devices to their skulls. Budkie believes that efforts should be made

to eliminate redundant research.

 

“The primate projects at Stanford are among the most duplicated in

the United States and could be eliminated without any loss to science

whatsoever,” Budkie said.

 

Budkie claimed that animal experimentation is primarily motivated by

financial concerns.

 

“SAEN ranked Stanford 19th in the U.S. for bringing in approximately

$163,374,000 per year from the Federal government for animal

experimentation,” he said. “This is not about science or human health

— it is about money.”

 

Although the 2005 report is the first time Stanford has ranked in the

top 20, recent Stanford Law School graduate Matthew Liebman, a member

of Animal Rights on the Farm (ARF) and Student Animal Legal Defense

Fund (SALDF), said that Stanford has a “history of AWA violations and

an institutional antagonism toward animal rights.”

 

“Animal-rights advocates have not reviewed Stanford’s USDA

inspections since the mid-1990s,” Liebman said. “ARF and SALDF are in

the process of using the Freedom of Information Act to get inspection

documents for the last 15 years.”

 

Liebman believes that in order for the University to effectively

protect animal welfare, it needs to be forthcoming about the

procedures and number of animals used in research as well as the

amount of suffering endured by the animals.

 

“As an elite and prestigious university, Stanford should be actively

recruiting and supporting researchers in the field of alternatives to

animal research, such as computer modeling, stem-cell research and in-

vitro methods,” Liebman said. “It should immediately cease some of

its most offensive animal experiments, such as the cocaine addiction

tests on juvenile monkeys.”

 

SAEN has not received any response from Stanford concerning its

recent report.

 

“Avoiding accountability and transparency to students and the public

is the laboratory’s modus operandi,” Liebman said. “Animal Rights on

the Farm has been campaigning for the last year to increase

transparency at Stanford, but the Research Animal Facility at

Stanford Medical School has been entirely resistant.”

 

According to the Stanford VSC

 

Although recognizing that individuals have a right to object to

animal research, Dr. Linda Cork, director of the Veterinary Service

Center and chair of the Department of Comparative Medicine, believes

that animal research is “essential to scientific advancement and to

advances in human health, based on [her] more than thirty years of

personal experiences in science.”

 

In order to analyze the laboratory animal-care program at Stanford

and the USDAÂ’s inspection findings, Cork thinks that one must first

understand that the USDA reports are structured so as to place widely

differing items into a single category.

 

According to Cork, broad categorization of violation types can

produce misleading results. For example, if a drug with an expired

use date is found in a laboratory, regardless of whether it is used

to treat an animal, it will be cited as a violation of Section 2.33,

which deals with inadequate veterinary care.

 

A single event may involve several sections of the AWA, so an

institution may receive multiple citations for a single event. Cork

identified an instance at Stanford when a monkey got out of its cage.

The incident was reported to the IACUC and USDA; however, the

laboratory was unable to determine how the animal managed to escape

from its enclosure. As a result, the USDA cited the laboratory twice

— once for failure to confine the monkey in a secure enclosure and

once for failure to train individuals on how to implement proper

locking mechanisms — even though the actual cause of the problem was

never discovered.

 

The most recent USDA inspection, cited by SAEN, contains several

citations under Section 2.31, which deals with activities of the IACUC.

 

One of the citations was for a large pig that a USDA inspector

thought walked with an abnormal gait because of overgrown hooves.

 

“The inspector’s opinion about the pig’s gait was not shared by

experienced Stanford veterinarians (one of whom, unlike the USDA

inspector, was a board certified specialist in the care of large

animals), and all of whom were familiar with the animal,” Cork said.

“The pig’s hooves had not been trimmed to avoid stressing the animal

and to avoid the risk of administering anesthesia. Nevertheless, to

respond to the inspectorÂ’s citation, the pig was subjected to

anesthesia; its hooves were trimmed, but its gait remained unchanged.”

 

Several other citations under Section 2.31 dealt with the IACUC for

not determining the training qualifications of a surgeon, for

inadequate literature search, for a protocol in which changes were

made without IACUC approval and for inadequate justification for

using a specific number of animals.

 

“The individual was an M.D. and an experienced surgeon who was

receiving additional species-specific training by Stanford

veterinarians to improve the surgical outcome,” Cork said. “The

surgeries took place in appropriate facilities, using aseptic

surgical techniques with proper anesthesia, postoperative analgesia

and care being provided by trained veterinary technicians. Animal

welfare was being emphasized. The USDAÂ’s concerns were not about

animal welfare, but were about appropriate documentation and

oversight of a complicated, ongoing study.”

 

Cork noted that the SAEN report fails to mention that the USDAÂ’s

inspection also describes StanfordÂ’s new system for preventing

problems with protocol review.

 

“Stanford invested significant financial and personnel resources to

develop this system, which will make it easier for submitters and

reviewers to comply with and document all regulatory requirements,”

Cork said.

 

Cork also stated that improving StanfordÂ’s large and diverse animal

care program is an “ongoing activity that takes place on several

fronts.”

 

“Stanford provides high quality animal care, but we always strive to

do better,” she said. “The IACUC has a subcommittee that studies and

recommends ways to improve the psychological enrichment of all species.

 

“Stanford has developed a sophisticated system for veterinary medical

records. Our diagnostic lab for laboratory animals provides quick,

accurate results for research and diagnosis. The VSC has experienced

animal caretakers and a faculty and staff of skilled veterinary

specialists to care for StanfordÂ’s research animals.

 

“In short, Stanford provides most of the clinical resources for

laboratory animal care that are usually found only in a major

veterinary teaching hospital. It does so because it cares about

animal welfare and because it values good science

 

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