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Media Coverage Johns Hopkins U. Agrees to $25,000 Settlement Over Animal-Care Allegations From the Chronicle of higher education By JEFFREY BRAINARD Washington The Johns Hopkins University has paid a fine of $25,000 to settle
complaints from animal-welfare inspectors that it failed to give
adequate care to animals used in some research projects. The inspectors, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, alleged that
university staff members did not give anesthesia or proper veterinary
care to several animals during experiments that caused them pain, and
that at least 37 primates were housed in conditions that were too small
or otherwise deficient. The alleged incidents occurred mostly from 1998 to 2003, and it took
several years for the university and the Agriculture Department to reach
the settlement, which was completed in February. The Agriculture
Department, which is responsible for inspecting research laboratories
that use animals, does not generally publicize such agreements. An
Ohio-based group that opposes animal research, Stop Animal Exploitation
Now, described the settlement in a news release on Tuesday. The university admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement, a copy of
which was obtained by The Chronicle. A spokeswoman said on Tuesday that
Johns Hopkins had taken steps to strengthen its oversight of research
involving animals and to improve the facilities where they are housed.
In recent years, the Agriculture Department has stepped up the number
of settlements it has reached with universities over animal research,
but such agreements continue to be rare. Johns Hopkins is the largest
university to have reached one. Johns Hopkins was by far the top recipient of research money from the
National Institutes of Health in 2004, with $599-million for more than
1,300 projects. The university has an annual budget of $2.4-billion. The Agriculture Department's amended complaint, filed in September
2004, said that "the gravity of respondent's violations is great." The
complaint did not specify how many animals were involved, but they
appeared to represent a small portion of the total covered by
inspections. The department's inspectors checked on 1,154 research
animals at Johns Hopkins in August 2000 alone. The complaint mentioned at least 16 specific research studies, some
of which induced pain in animals. In one study, three pigs did not
receive any analgesics or proper care following a pain-inducing
experiment; the same was true of a dog in another experiment and a
marmoset monkey in a third. In other cases, the complaint merely noted
that the research project did not spell out a plan for relieving a
research animal's pain. The complaint also cited inadequate care for various monkeys used by
Johns Hopkins. The alleged deficiencies included not providing
"environmental enhancements" necessary to promote the monkeys'
psychological well-being. For example, the university housed nine
macaques in isolation, which can cause them considerable distress
because they are social animals. The complaint also alleged substandard
housing conditions for primates in some rooms at the university's
Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, including dirt and grease and damaged
plaster. Some of the other alleged violations involved inadequate oversight by
the university's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, which is
responsible under federal regulations for monitoring research involving
animals. The inspectors said researchers had modified some projects
without first obtaining the committee's approval. The university "has been making great improvements in the processes
in place to oversee animal research and to maintain and improve the
quality of our research and care program," said Joanna B. Downer, a
spokeswoman. "If our animals aren't doing well, it doesn't contribute to
excellent research." Some of the changes the university has made have been organizational.
Before 1999, the university had separate animal-care-and-use committees
for its schools of medicine and public health. Now, the university has a
single, universitywide committee, improving consistency, Ms. Downer
said. In addition, the office for monitoring animal research had been
housed within the university's School of Medicine. Under that
arrangement, the "potential" existed for the office to be insufficiently
independent of the school's medical researchers, making it difficult to
monitor them adequately, Ms. Downer said. Now, the oversight office is
an independent unit and reports to a vice provost. That change gave the
oversight office more money and clout to make changes in animal care and
research. Among other changes, the university has increased the size of the
staff that cares for research animals, although Ms. Downer was unable to
say immediately by how much. Johns Hopkins has also provided more
education and training programs for workers who handle research animals.
And the university opened a modern new animal-holding facility last
September.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/08/2005081003n.htm
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