ACTION ALERT:
Contact:
F. King Alexander, President
Louisiana State University
[email protected]
Group questions animal experimentation practices
From Amber Smith,
BRProud.com, November 15, 2018
SHREVEPORT, La. (LOCAL 33)(FOX 44) - A group monitoring research
facilities for illegal activity and animal abuse is calling on the LSU
System to to launch an independent investigation into the animal
experimentation program.
Stop Animal Exploitation Now executive director Michael Budkie sent a letter
to LSU President F. King Alexander on Tuesday.
The letter included documents revealing the Animal Care and Use Committee
voted to suspend an experiment on rodents back in January 2018 at LSU Health
Shreveport. The documents listed multiple reasons for suspension including
that the experiments were being performed on Fridays with post-op on
weekends without veterinary supervision, animals were being used for the
same experiment twice and animal endpoints were not being adhered to.
After corrective action, records show that suspension was lifted.
"The severity of the compliance issues and the lack of adequate supervision
by the ACUC clearly indicate that major systematic issues exist. In the
presence of this project, I cannot imagine that other LSU projects are fully
compliant," Budkie said in the letter to Alexander.
In the letter to LSU, Budkie asks for the following:
We reached out to a representative from LSU Health Shreveport. Here is the statement provided:
The referenced non-compliant actions were discovered by our institution’s internal due diligence, and were self-reported to the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The LSUHS Department of Animal Resources and our Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC) investigated and established a thorough plan to address and correct the concerns, which OLAW and NIH reviewed and accepted."
"LSU Health Shreveport holds itself to the highest standards in animal care recognizing the vital roles animals have played in virtually every major medical advance of the last century," LSU Health Spokesperson Lisa Babin said.
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