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jperman@umaryland.edu SAMPLE MESSAGE: You must permanently terminate the previously suspended rat experiment titled "Brain Monitoring and Therapeutic Hypothermia after Cardiac Arrest." in which UMB staff refused to provide pain relief to rats. This failure was not only extremely inhumane, but also violated the approved protocol. This violation has severely damaged the reputation of the University of Maryland, Baltimore.University experiment suspended for denying pain relief to animals
From Corey Shegda, NBC26.com, November 28, 2018The University of Maryland, Baltimore has suspended an experiment they
were conducting after reports indicate they were denying pain relief to
animals they were operating on.
The university confessed they were forced to stop their experiment because
they failed to comply with multiple federal regulations, according to the
national watchdog group SAEN, or Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!, which
monitors U.S. research facilities for illegal activity and animal abuse.
While the details about the experiment are still limited, documents from UMB
reveal the project was suspended because animals were repeatedly denied pain
relief after surgeries, they were not given proper time to recover after
surgeries, the staff did not euthanize them after they reached their
endpoints and the staff did not properly keep records.
In a letter to the University of Maryland Board of Regents, SAEN said
animals were not given any pain relief during a procedure involving cardiac
arrest, and instead of giving the animals a three- to seven-day recovery
period, they were given up to 24 hours. It also said animals were inspected
by veterinarians and one animal required euthanasia, but was kept alive.
All of this was discovered during multiple separate lab inspections done by
UMB research administration.
The letter also says during those inspections, the lab was notified of the
serious consequences of not providing pain relief to the animals, but still
did not get the necessary medications by the time another inspection took
place, even though a surgery was going on at the time of the second
inspection.
After another unannounced inspection, changes were still not made, so the
experiment was suspended on October 25.
Now, SAEN is urging for UMB to do further research of abuse, terminate the
project and refund all of the project support, $1.9 million, to the federal
government.
"This failed experiment must be terminated immediately,” said Michael A.
Budkie, a co-founder and executive director of SAEN. "The idea that a
principal investigator repeatedly violated their own protocol and denied
pain relief to animals indicates a total disregard for proper scientific
procedures and total contempt for the authority of UMB Research
Administration."
SAEN is also calling for the results of the research to not be published
because protocol was not followed.
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