When you have 116 different animals that have died to starvation, dehydration, drowning and or suffocation, this is very serious.
SHARI RUDAVSKI: ‘An Ohio-based animal rights group is calling upon the Indiana University School of Medicine to fire staff and conduct an independent investigation into 17 different instances in which researchers did not follow laboratory protocol and wound up killing 116 animals and injuring more. The group Stop Animal Exploitation Now, or SAEN, made a public records request for all correspondence from IU to the National Institute of Health’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare over an 18-month period. The request yielded 17 letters sent from Bloomington to Bethesda that detail a litany of mistakes, from starving mice to performing painful procedures without pain control…
While it’s not uncommon for laboratories to report such lapses in protocol, IU stands out for the sheer number of animal lives lost, said Michael A. Budkie, executive director and founder of SAEN, which would like to see the use of all animals in research eliminated. “For one facility to have 17 reports in a period of less than two years is excessive… When you have 116 different animals that have died to starvation, dehydration, drowning and or suffocation, this is very serious,” he said. “I would say it’s certainly in the top 10 percent” of what he’s seen. SAEN sent a similar letter to officials at the University of Iowa, where 244 animals, including some ferrets, have died’. SOURCE…
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