Media Coverage About SAEN Stop Animal Exploitation Now

Group files federal complaint against New Mexico Tech over animal research

From Margaret O’Hara, SantaFeNewMexican.com, March 6, 2023

An animal rights watchdog organization has followed through with its threat to file a complaint with the National Institutes of Health against the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology over a research project in 2021 in which mice were so poorly cared for many starved to death. 

The complaint calls on top officials at the federal agency to revoke the university's Animal Welfare Assurance, effectively barring New Mexico Tech from receiving federal funds designated for public health research. 

The organization, Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! — better known as SAEN — sent a letter to New Mexico Tech President Stephen Wells in late February after obtaining a report by the school detailing the research project's violations of federal and school policies on animal welfare.

In the letter, SAEN Executive Director Michael Budkie demanded all New Mexico Tech staff involved in the project be fired, all federal funding used on the project be returned, any publications generated by the project be retracted, and an investigation into the New Mexico Tech Animal Care and Use Program take place. 

Failure to take these steps would result in a complaint to the National Institutes of Health, Budkie wrote. 

SAEN's complaint, addressed to NIH Director Lawrence Tabak and Principal Deputy Inspector General Christi Grimm, alleges serious noncompliance with federal animal welfare guidelines and lack of timely reporting of violations. Documents obtained by SAEN show the first animal deaths occurred in February 2021 but were not reported to the NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare until August 2021 after a vote by the university's animal care oversight committee. 

Because the head researcher on the project initially was an oversight committee member, Budkie alleged the entire committee delayed reporting to federal officials "to protect one of their own." 
In a statement Thursday responding to SAEN's initial allegations, New Mexico Tech Director of Research Compliance Mikell Coleman stated the university took appropriate action in response to the lack of compliance, including terminating the researcher's ability to conduct animal research, notifying the NIH and voluntarily halting federal funding for the research. The researcher also was removed from the oversight committee.

"Procedures the institute has in place to respond to, investigate and correct incidents involving animal research functioned as intended. ... The conduct was discovered and reported, thoroughly investigated, and subsequently adjudicated," Coleman wrote. 

Officials from New Mexico Tech's Research Division declined to comment further Monday, directing questions to the NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare. The federal agency did not respond to requests for comment.

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