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U. leads nation in animal abuse, group says Watchdog organization claims Penn had most animal
rights violation in the country From the Daily Pennsylvanian - Clint Cohen The University is the most frequent violator of federal animal-abuse
guidelines in the country, with 77 citations during a nine-month period,
according to research watchdog group Stop Animal Exploitation Now.
SAEN reported that most of Penn's violations are in three
areas: veterinary care; housing, facilities and sanitation; and
institutional animal care and use committees. "I'm very disturbed by [these] violations both in terms of the
quantity of them and what I consider to be the very serious nature of
them," said SAEN Executive Director Michael Budkie. The SAEN Web site says that veterinary care inadequacies, one of
Penn's most common violations, can range from expired drug use to
"downright veterinary negligence." USDA documents noted a piglet with a 10-inch abdominal hernia that
did not receive any medical attention, despite the condition having been
noticed by facility staff more than a week earlier. Budkie said Penn's extraordinary 77 violations of the Act -
second-place violator Harvard has only 32 - are likely the result of the
size of the University's research programs. The University has an annual sponsored research-project budget of
about $750 million, according to the School of Medicine. "They have more chances to violate the Animal Welfare Act simply
because they have more animals," Budkie said. But Regulatory Affairs Director Joseph Sherwin said
research-facility-registration policies at Penn may artificially inflate
Penn's number of violations. Sherwin said that, whereas many research facilities and universities
register each department - such as medical schools and veterinary
schools - separately, Penn uses a single registration across all
departments. The USDA then totals its numbers based on that registration, giving
Penn more violations that other schools, Sherwin said. Sherwin added that reports from groups such as SAEN should be
disregarded because these groups are fundamentally opposed to animal
experimentation; they are not watchdog organizations that make sure
institutions such as Penn are in line with federal regulation, as the
USDA does. Budkie verified that the eventual goal of SAEN "is the elimination of
all animal experimentation" but added that this doesn't mitigate the
severity of the University's violations. Still, Sherwin's call to ignore the SAEN study is backed by the
findings of another watchdog organization: AAALAC, Penn's
research-accreditation group. Sherwin said the group has given Penn full accreditation for its
research studies since the 1980s and visited research facilities as
recently as 2005. University spokeswoman Phyllis Holtzman wrote in an e-mail that
surveillance by organizations like the National Institutes of Health
help keep Penn in check. The NIH, the nation's preeminent sponsor for biomedical research
studies, refuses grants when strict animal-care standards aren't met.
Holtzman added that Penn has its own review panel to oversee animal
care and research procedures.
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