[Ed. Note: For more about Animal Welfare Act Violations, visit Stop Animal Exploitation Now! (SAEN) - U.S. Animal Lab Facilities.]
From Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), September 2011
The Ivy League universities are often lauded as among the best schools in the country,1 receiving thousands of applications from hopeful students2 and billions of dollars of public money in research grants from the National Institutes of Health each year. But do they make the grade when it comes to animal welfare? Researchers at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) developed specific measures—a Research Misconduct Score and a Research Misconduct Index—to evaluate the Ivy League universities on their adherence to the minimal standards of the Animal Welfare Act and their stewardship of taxpayer funding through the National Institutes of Health.
FINDINGS
PCRM researchers found that all eight Ivy League universities had disturbingly high numbers of Animal Welfare Act violations, many of which were repeat or severe. Based on a PCRM scoring system that weighs the number and severity of violations, the Ivy League schools were ranked from worst to eighth worst.
IVY LEAGUE RESEARCH MISCONDUCT REPORT CARD:
| Rank | University | Research Misconduct Score |
Notable Violations |
| Worst | University of Pennsylvania | 120 | A dead newborn puppy was
found under a kennel floor grate. |
| 2nd worst(tie) |
Princeton University | 49 | Nonhuman primate were
routinely forced to go more than 24 hours without water. |
| 2nd worst (tie) |
Yale University | 49 | Baboons were burned and
blistered when heating pads were substitute for warm water units in an experiment. |
| 4th worst |
Harvard University | 48 | A cage was sent through
a mechanical cage washer wit a primate still inside. He was found dead. |
| 5th worst |
Cornell University | 38 | A primate's lungs
essentially burst when an important valve was not opened during Surgery. The animal died of pulmonary Hyperinflation. |
| 6th worst |
Brown University | 35 | Students used animals in
surgical experiments not approved by the ICAC. Two had to be euthanized. |
| 7th worst |
Dartmouth College | 33 | An investigator noticed
a nonhuman primate so thin his pelvic bones showed. The attending veterinarian had not been notified of his life-threatening weight loss. |
| 8th worst |
Columbia University | 25 | Alternatives to a
painful experiment were not even considered. |
| 