The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been ordered to report more frequently on its animal care to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), after an unannounced inspection by agency officials last month found numerous deficiencies.
In an 18 December letter to William Mellon, the university’s interim associate dean for research policy, the biomedical agency’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare documents a dozen issues it says require corrective actions and an “enhanced” reporting schedule. It asks the university to report back no later than 1 April on corrective actions it is taking.
The partially-redacted letter was first obtained by WISC-TV in Madison and reported here. The violations it describes include an overweening “all campus” animal care and use committee that appeared to overrule decisions made by other, nominally independent committees within the university. “The All Campus IACUC must not usurp the authority of any other IACUC,” the letter states. It also notes problems with insufficient group housing of primates, animal transport vehicles with inappropriate climate controls and neglected chicken housing. urges sufficient group housing for primates and transporting animals in vehicles with appropriate climate controls, and notes problems with chicken housing. “Having the bedding changed annually and the watering equipment sanitized once per year is not consistent” with NIH regulations, the NIH officials write.
In a separate story here, the television station also reported on 20 animal care violations found by US Department of Agriculture inspectors who accompanied the NIH officials on their visit to the campus last month. These included facilities with dirty air filters, flies and urine odors.
University officials could not be reached for comment on short notice. If Nature succeeds in reaching them in the coming days, this blog will be updated. (Editor’s note: see Update below.) In the meantime, on 4 January, Eric Sandgren, the director of the university’s Research Animal Resources Center, put out this statement to animal-using faculty. In it, he noted that both USDA and NIH inspectors “complimented our openness and assistance during the visit. The USDA inspectors also commented that our program was in overall good shape, and comparable to programs at other large research institutions.”
He added that the university, in responding to the government, “will be making a few important changes in how our program functions.” They include, he wrote, not using non-pharmaceutical grade compounds for animal experiments and discarding expired drugs. In their proposals, investigators will also have to give more detailed information documenting their searches for alternatives to painful procedures.
UPDATE: Nature reached Eric Sandgren, the director of the university’s Research Animal Resources Center, late on Friday afternoon. He argued that, of the 12 issues detailed in the letter, only two required corrective actions to facilties and many described activities – like transporting animals in climate-controlled vehicles – that the university was already doing. Rather than implying that the university was failing to do these things, he said, “I take [the NIH comments] as reminders they wanted to make sure we were not ignoring those things or did not ignore them in the future.”
He also noted that the university provided NIH’s letter to WISC-TV of its own volition. “We actually sent it to WISC-TV. That shows that our intent is very open. That’s important.”
Finally, he said that the federal officials’ comments on the need to limit the power of the university’s all-campus animal care and use committee were based on only one incident, in which final decisions on the adequacy of animal care at each of five schools in the university were left to the all-campus committee. From now on, the school’s individual committees will make those decisions.