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Dr. Robert GibbensLive vole left in UCSF freezer prompts complaint from animal
welfare group
From Nanette Asimov,
SFChronicle.com, April 2, 2019
A live rodent was abandoned in a freezer for up to two days last summer at a
UCSF research lab, according to a letter obtained by The Chronicle in which
the university acknowledges that it failed to comply with federal animal
welfare regulations.
The rodent, a vole used in a research study, was euthanized by lab staff who
found it in the freezer. The vole was the fifth animal death tied to Animal
Welfare Act violations in less than two years at UCSF, according to a
complaint filed Monday with the U.S. Department of Agriculture by the animal
protection group Stop Animal Exploitation Now.
Two pigs and two voles died in the earlier incidents discovered in 2017 by
inspectors with the USDA, which enforces the Animal Welfare Act with
unannounced visits. Repeat violations can lead to fines.
“Since UCSF has a long history of animal abuse which has led to multiple
animal deaths and/or injuries, I must insist that you take the most severe
action allowable under the Animal Welfare Act,” Michael Budkie, SAEN’s
executive director wrote in his complaint, which asked for a $10,000 fine
for each violation.
In a statement, the university said it “takes great care to ensure that as
few animals as possible are used in research, and that they are treated
well. UCSF seeks to report all instances when research does not adhere to
the protocols established by the UCSF Institutional Animal Care and Use
Committee.”
UCSF has one of the largest medical research programs in the country and
relies on hundreds of thousands of animals — including rodents, fish,
amphibians, reptiles, primates, birds and rabbits — in its search for
treatments for cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other ailments. It also
has a site to report concerns about animal welfare.
Researchers reported the freezer incident to UCSF’s committee on
Institutional Animal Care and Use, and to the lab animal welfare office of
the National Institutes of Health, one of its research funders.
“A single live vole was found in a closed cardboard container in a mouse lab
freezer,” Associate Vice Chancellor Brian Smith told the NIH on Sept. 11. He
noted that after the animal was euthanized and autopsied, “it appeared that
the vole had been without food for 1-2 days.” Despite questioning the lab
staff, “it is still not known who put the animal in the freezer,” he wrote,
adding that the vole lab staff would be retrained.
In his complaint to the USDA, Budkie cited four other animal deaths in
recent years, including that of two pigs.
In 2017, lab staff euthanized a pig after researchers gave it 50 times the
amount of steam allowed during a gallbladder operation to test whether steam
ablation can be a viable alternative to surgery, according to USDA
inspectors who discovered the violation. Researchers gave the pig 200 puffs
of steam instead of the four permitted by lab protocols. The pig stopped
eating, and an autopsy found its stomach had been perforated, the inspectors
reported.
In the second incident, a pig died mysteriously after a CT scan. The lab
staff disposed of the body before determining why.
Although Budkie is urging the USDA to punish UCSF to the full extent of the
law, he acknowledged that that may not happen under the Trump
administration.
The agency, which oversees 8,000 labs, zoos and other animal facilities,
issued 60 percent fewer citations for Animal Welfare Act violations between
2017 and 2018, the Washington Post reported in February. Last year, the
agency issued fewer than 1,800 notices of violation, down from more than
4,000 the year before, the Post reported.
The article cited a shortage of inspectors, changes to the agency’s
enforcement process, and a resistance to public scrutiny that led the USDA
to remove violation records from its website in 2017. Some were restored but
redacted.
Over the years, UCSF has received strong scrutiny from the agency, and in
2005 paid more than $90,000 to settle violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
A subsequent Chronicle analysis of federal inspection reports found that
between 2005 and 2012, lab errors or negligence led to gruesome examples of
animal mistreatment. Among them were rodents and birds enduring surgeries
without anesthesia, mice and primates deprived of food and drink for
extended periods, and a rhesus monkey that remained in a brain study for two
years despite chronic and painful complications.
Last year, the research lab’s accreditor, Assessment and Accreditation of
Laboratory Animal Care, renewed its authorization with praise that singled
out UCSF’s “excellent program of laboratory animal care,” and its
“comprehensive training program for rodent surgery.”