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Dr. Danny Jacobs, PresidentAnimal rights group decries ‘barbaric’ experiments on ferrets at OHSU
From Kale Williams, OregonLive.com, April 15, 2020
An animal rights group is demanding the Oregon Health and Science
University stop some experiments on ferrets after photographs emerged
showing the animals in restrained in dirty conditions and the university was
cited for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
The experiments, which were briefly suspended last summer, were blasted by
Michael Budkie, executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now, who
obtained the pictures through a records request.
“The photos of the ferret in the restraint device ... prove that this
project is nothing short of barbaric,” Budkie wrote in an April 8 letter to
OHSU President Danny Jacobs. “These images are the stuff of nightmares.”
Officials from the university said they self-reported some of the issues
Budkie cited and that changes had been made to lab protocols, which had
resulted in violations issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a
surprise inspection last year.
“We strive for perfection but unfortunately that can’t always be met,” said
Kim Saunders, a veterinarian and director of the Department of Comparative
Medicine at the university. ”When something goes wrong, we take it
seriously.”
For the experiments in question, which focus on how the brain processes
sound, small holes were drilled through the skulls of ferrets, and
electrodes were inserted into the brain to measure how audible stimulation
was interpreted by the animals. After the surgery, the animals are fitted
with pink acrylic caps to protect their skulls.
The experiments help researchers develop cochlear implants and other aides
for people experiencing hearing loss, Saunders said.
During one surgical procedure on a ferret in April of 2019, some people in
the operating room failed to keep the area sterile. The animal proved to be
unsuitable for the experiment and was euthanized using an unapproved method,
Saunders said, though she noted the method used was similar to how domestic
animals are put down in veterinarian offices on a regular basis.
In June, a federal inspector came to the university’s Portland lab and found
several ferrets had infections around their head caps, including “crusty,
foul-smelling exudate,” and several pieces of equipment in the operating
room were “corroded and dirty looking.”
Saunders said infections are not uncommon in animals that have head caps
and that, while the containers appeared corroded on the outside, the insides
were sterile.
Still, the research was suspended soon after the inspection while the
university worked to put more protections in place. The work to resume after
the university hired additional personnel to monitor the lab and corrected
other issues flagged by the USDA.
“I’ve been here for over 20 years, and this is the only suspension I’ve ever
seen,” Saunders said. They are rare occurrences but we take them very
seriously.”
While the pictures may be shocking to the public, Sauders said the research
conducted in OHSU labs is important.
“We do believe biomedical research is important to finding treatments and
cures for our loved ones,” she said.
Budkie, though, argued that whatever benefits are outweighed by the costs to
the animals involved and that the research should be terminated.
“The lab staff connected to this ill-fated experiment has bungled this
project so seriously that no useful information can come from it,” he wrote.
“This assault on human decency which is masquerading as a supposedly
scientific experiment must not be allowed to continue.”
A ferret with an acrylic skull cap is immobilized as part of an
experiment at Oregon Health and Science University. An animal rights group
blasted the institution for what it called "barbaric" violations of the
Animal Welfare Act.