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Media Coverage UCSF Primate Research Is Target Of Watchdog Group
POSTED: 8:24 pm PDT July 19, 2007 SAN FRANCISCO -- An animal rights group has filed a criticism with
federal regulators claiming that in recent years the University of
California, San Francisco violated the Animal Welfare Act in its
handling of primates used for study. Ohio-based Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN) has filed an official
complaint with the USDA about UCSF and its research practices on
primates, the group announced today. SAEN alleges that UCSF researchers have violated federal law by
depriving research subjects of water for days at a time and then hiding
the information from federal regulators, SAEN executive director Michael
Budkie said at a news conference in San Francisco today. SAEN is also alleging that UCSF routinely duplicates research
experiments to obtain continued federal funding, calling the research
"scientifically meaningless" and that UCSF is essentially burning
dollars to what is basically general research information. Additionally, Budkie made claims that UCSF has violated laws that
regulate how soon an animal can be used for any research experiment
after it has been involved in operative research. Corinna Kaarlela, a spokeswoman for UCSF, responded today in a
statement, writng that the "USDA has internal systems in place to
respond and/or investigate all concerns regarding laboratory animals
that are brought to its attention. Just like all other institutions
involved in similar research, UCSF is committed to full cooperation with
USDA." Referring to SAEN, Kaarlela said that while UCSF believes certain
animal activist organizations are philosophically opposed to animal
research, Budkie's statistics and information included in SAEN's
complaint are presented out of context and in a way that misrepresents
the facts. Based on university lab procedures from 2004 and 2005 that were
obtained through the Public Records Act, SAEN hopes to show USDA
investigators that UCSF has routinely violated federal laws by
mistreating animals and misrepresenting research and hiding abuse from
USDA regulators. "Experiments at UCSF violate multiple sections of federal law and
result in duplicative research whose chief value is to pad the budget of
UCSF," Budkie wrote in his complaint to the USDA. "It is obvious that
UCSF has filed blatantly dishonest documents with the USDA." Kaarlela addressed Tuesday's complaint to the USDA filed by SAEN by
citing the USDA's most recent inspection report of university animal
research facilities. "We want to point out that the records regarding certain primate
studies noted by a recent animal rights organization letter to the USDA UCSF recently received full renewal of its accreditation by the
independent organization Association for Assessment and Accreditation of
Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC), which according to
Kaarlela is recognized as the gold standard for animal care facilities.
In 2006 SAEN filed similar allegations to the USDA concerning animal
rights abuses at UC Davis' primate lab. On Monday those allegations were
deemed unfounded, out of context or too vague by members of the campus
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.
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