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Stop Animal
Exploitation NOW!
S. A. E. N.
"Exposing the truth to wipe
out animal experimentation"
 Articles and
Reports
The Animal Experimentation Scandal:
An Audit of the 2005 National Institutes of Health
Funding of Animal Experimentation
By Michael A. Budkie, A.H.T., Executive Director, SAEN
Specific Facilities
If specific institutions are examined using the same method as was
used to develop an estimated national total for the overall funding of
animal experimentation, it is possible to arrive at estimates for the
annual funding received by specific laboratories for the performance of
animal experimentation.
After examining information relevant to many well-known facilities, a
list of thirty has been developed. These are very likely to be the top
30 facilities in the U.S. for annual federal funding of animal
experimentation, accounting for 39% of all animal research grants for
the nation. These facilities range from over $440 million a year to just
over $116 million per year in funding from the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA),
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP),
Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Office of
Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH). (Please see Appendix B for funding
estimates for all fifty facilities).
The top 30 facilities nationally for the receipt of funds from the
agencies in question for the performance of animal experimentation are
listed in the table below. They are listed in order of dollars received
from the government agencies in question, with the top lab listed first.
|
Facility
|
Annual Funding |
Rank |
|
Harvard University
|
$441,273,869 |
1 |
|
University of
Washington, Seattle |
$418,889,748 |
2 |
|
Oregon Health
Science University |
$274,916,502 |
3 |
|
Johns Hopkins
University |
$256,886,000 |
4 |
|
University of
Pennsylvania |
$256,060,000 |
5 |
|
Emory University |
$239,303,364 |
6 |
|
University of
Michigan |
$216,825,000 |
7 |
|
Washington
University |
$215,999,000 |
8 |
|
University of
California, San Francisco |
$203,196,000 |
9 |
|
Yale |
$199,066,000 |
10 |
|
Southwest Found.
for Biomedical Research |
$195,268,215 |
11 |
|
University of
California, Los Angeles |
$194,110,000 |
12 |
|
Tulane |
$183,978,003 |
13 |
|
University of
Pittsburgh |
$183,372,000 |
14 |
|
NYU/Mt. Sinai |
$175,525,000 |
15 |
|
Baylor |
$173,047,000 |
16 |
|
Vanderbilt |
$170,982,000 |
17 |
|
Massachusetts
General Hospital |
$165,613,000 |
18 |
|
Stanford |
$164,374,000 |
19 |
|
Duke |
$162,309,000 |
20 |
|
University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill |
$154,875,000 |
21 |
|
University of
California, San Diego |
$153,223,000 |
22 |
|
Brigham & Women’s
Hospital (MA) |
$151,984,000 |
23 |
|
Columbia University |
$147,028,000 |
24 |
|
University of
California, Davis |
$142,033,026 |
25 |
|
University of
Wisconsin, Madison |
$141,655,452 |
26 |
|
University of
Texas, Dallas |
$126,378,000 |
27 |
|
Scripps Research
Institute (San Diego) |
$124,726,000 |
28 |
|
University of
Colorado |
$118,879,000 |
29 |
|
University of
Alabama, Birmingham |
$116,053,000 |
30 |
These thirty facilities averaged an estimated $195,527,939 per year
for the performance of animal experimentation, as received from the
relevant agencies. The availability of sums of money of this magnitude
must begin to raise questions about the facilities that receive it. Are
the experiments performed by these facilities internally approved
because they have the potential to further scientific knowledge, or
because they have become budgetary necessities? Are university faculty
pressured to perform research projects simply to justify (i.e. pay for)
their own positions? Are university professors in the sciences viewed
primarily as teachers or as procurers of grants? Are research projects
proposed to obtain scientific knowledge, or simply to procure government
funding? In essence, we must begin to wonder if the research that is
underway at many universities is worthwhile in any sense other than
monetary. Are funded research projects unique and innovative, or simply
just re-treads of existing projects designed to bring in ever more
funding?
It has already been demonstrated that a significant amount of
duplication exists in many areas of animal experimentation. How can this
duplication be interpreted? What does it tell us about the system of
which animal experimentation is a part?
A grant system that is fraught with unnecessary duplication and
redundancy would seem to indicate that the goal is not to obtain new and
useful scientific knowledge, but simply to perform research. Where could
such a system reveal itself? It may be revealed in the grant approval
process.
Plous and Herzog (1) have performed an examination of the
Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee (IACUC) system. The IACUC is
the internal body that performs the first step in the approval process
for each research project. The findings of this investigation were that
unaffiliated IACUCs usually did not approve projects that had previously
been examined and approved by the IACUC from the institution where the
grant originated. The authors attempted to explain this finding by
saying that it was based on familiarity with the researcher who
originated the protocol in question.
This entirely misses the point. IACUCs have a vested interest in
approving every research project that comes before them. Every
experiment, every project, potentially brings hundreds of thousands of
dollars into the facility where it is performed. Investigators prestige
and financial well-being are often connected to the successful
completion of government-funded experiments. Institutional budgets are
substantially subsidized by the income from government research grants.
The bottom line is that substantially more incentives exist for grant
approval than for disapproval. Financial, prestigious, and bureaucratic
motivations lead to the potentially unjustified approval of research
projects. The interests of the animals (who are unable to speak) and the
public (who are under-represented on IACUCs) contradict this drive for
approval.
This is the system that has lead to an ever-increasing tide of
redundant research projects. For what better way to insure approval of a
project, than to make only minor modifications in a paradigm that has
already been accepted? If the goal is to bring in more money, not gain
new knowledge, why gamble with unknown cutting-edge technology when
tried-and-true (and previously-approved) methodologies are available?
The safest thing is to engage in parametric tinkering, using a well
defined and understood approach to measure some obscure aspect of an
area of “basic science.” This approach may well guarantee approval of a
proposed research project. It also guarantees that many essentially
useless and extremely redundant research projects will be performed over
and over again.
From a governmental point of view this kind of duplication is
potentially financially catastrophic. The hundreds of millions of
dollars spent every year by these seven agencies to fund medical
research using animals may well be going into a bottomless pit of
duplication that accomplishes nothing other than funneling hundreds of
millions of tax dollars into the coffers of nationally known
laboratories. For their own part, these laboratories have literally
become fiscally dependent on animal experiments. What laboratory could
afford to lose an average amount of $195,527,939 in federal funding?
Losses of this magnitude would be fiscally catastrophic, potentially
leading to laboratory closures and staff reductions. Every indication
points to the primary motivation for the performance of animal research
to be monetary, not scientific.
We may be told that this funding system is well supervised and that
the system does not allow for waste. However, animal based
experimentation brings billions of dollars into U.S. laboratories every
year. In light of the fact that these institutions receive so much
federal funding, it is highly likely that duplicative experimentation is
funded on a regular basis with the primary purpose of filling out the
budgets of local colleges and universities.
At the facility level, the membership of Institutional Animal Care &
Use Committees (who are responsible for institutional protocol approval)
are heavily weighted with people who either perform animal experiments
or individuals who otherwise have a vested interest (i.e. --
institutionally affiliated veterinarians) in the performance of animal
experimentation. Do they have any real motivation for declining to
approve a project? It appears that these bodies are substantially biased
toward grant approval because each additional grant brings more money
into the laboratory. The grant approval process probably has more to do
with job security and the prevention of budget shortfalls than with
science.
At a time when projections for the federal budget include deficits
for many years to come, the funding of animal experimentation should be
closely examined.
Statistical Highlights
Ø The average facility in the top 30 U.S. laboratories received an
average of over $195,527,939 per year for the performance of animal
experiments, or $53,569 per day/per facility.
Ø The top 30 labs in the US account for 39% of all animal
experimentation grants funded through the National Institutes of Health.
1. Science : Volume 293, Number 5530, Issue of 27 Jul 2001, pp. 608-60
Go on to
Animal Welfare Act Enforcement
Within the top 30 labs
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Scandal
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