Notre Dame lab working with mice last year violated federal animal guidelines, records show
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Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., President
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Please terminate the experiment which intentionally abused a mouse and left other mice with incisions gaping open, or missing limbs. This project must not continue and all staff connected to this debacle must be immediately terminated.

 

Notre Dame lab working with mice last year violated federal animal guidelines, records show

From Marek Mazurek, SouthBendTribune.com, May 19, 2020

 Researchers in a Notre Dame laboratory violated federal animal welfare policy last year after mice were found with missing limbs and one mouse was intentionally hit against a table, according to documents the university filed with a federal agency.

The documents — which include letters and reports from university research administrators to the federal Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare — were obtained and released to media outlets by the animal advocacy group Stop Animal Exploitation Now.

Notre Dame self-reported the violations to the federal agency and suspended the lab’s activities in late August 2019 due to “serious deviation” from animal treatment guidelines, the documents show.

In a letter to the OLAW dated Aug. 31, 2019, Robert Bernhard, Notre Dame’s vice president of research, detailed instances where the lab did not comply with federal guidelines.

On Aug. 9, 2019, veterinary staff at the Freimann Life Sciences Center found two mice in a lab had missing limbs and another two had their “bowels exteriorized” after surgery, with sutures and clips missing. Ten of the mice also had tumors larger than the approved protocol of two centimeters. All of the mice were euthanized after they "likely experienced unrelieved pain or distress," according to Bernhard's letter.

Researchers had injected the mice with breast cancer cells to grow and study tumors.

Notre Dame administrators also received an anonymous report that someone in the lab intentionally "struck" a live mouse against a table. In addition, lab personnel failed to keep accurate surgical records and wear appropriate protective equipment, the letter said.

Stop Animal Exploitation Now obtained the letter and other documents through a Freedom of Information Act request to the OLAW, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, and released them publicly on Wednesday. The group routinely submits requests for records involving research universities that conduct animal experiments, said its executive director, Michael Budkie.

“Every time regulations are violated, it’s serious, but this is some of the most disturbing information I’ve ever seen,” Budkie said.

His group has sent a letter to the university's president, the Rev. John Jenkins, requesting that staff members involved in the violations be fired and that all federal grant money for the project be returned. The lab research had been funded in part by a grant originating from the National Institutes of Health.

“Notre Dame is committed to protecting the welfare of animals used in research,” university spokesman Dennis Brown said in a statement to the Tribune. “Upon receiving a report of problems in one of our laboratories, the university moved quickly and aggressively to address the issues that had been discovered and followed all protocols for reporting to relevant authorities."

OLAW has the authority to block an institution from receiving federal grant money for animal research. But a letter from OLAW's compliance director on Jan. 6 commended Notre Dame for its handling of the violations.

“The prompt consideration of this matter by the University of Notre Dame was consistent with the philosophy of institutional self-regulation,” the letter read. “We appreciate being informed of this matter and find no cause for further action by this office.”

In a subsequent letter to the agency, university administrators said an internal investigation found that lenient oversight and a lack of communication were contributing factors to the violations.

Notre Dame’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, which monitors animal research on campus, found that one person was responsible for a “significant number” of incidents, including hitting the mouse on a table. Documents say the individual was removed from all animal work but remains a member of the lab.

After implementing new protocols to better train lab personnel and keep an accurate account of procedures, Notre Dame allowed the lab to resume its research in early October 2019, documents show.

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