In print | Published April 10, 2008

To the Editor:

Thank you for your article on the failure of laboratories to accurately report the amount of pain and distress suffered by animals used in experiments (“Delay in annual animal research report, still in compliance with AWA guidelines,” April 3). It’s a tragedy for the animals that this failure, awful as it is, is just one of numerous violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) in laboratories across the country.

A scathing 2005 audit report published by the Office of the Inspector General reports that laboratories view fines for AWA violations as a “cost of conducting business,” while Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) -oversight committees that are the animals’ last line of defense - are failing to carry out their responsibilities. As a result, sick animals go without veterinary care, animals used in invasive surgeries do not receive sufficient pain relief, and extremely sick animals are denied humane euthanasia. An astounding 29 percent — nearly a third — of oversight committees are failing to ensure that experimenters have looked for alternatives to painful procedures on animals, as they’re required to do.

Just as bad, IACUCs appear to be little more than rubber-stamp committees, approving the cruelest and most meaningless studies. At Swarthmore, the IACUC has approved experiments in recent years in which hundreds of rats have been electroshocked and then placed in tanks of water where they must swim to stay alive. The point? To induce extreme stress.

Animals in laboratories endure lives of deprivation, isolation, stress, trauma and depression even before they are used in any experiment. When billions of taxpayer dollars are funneled into these experiments, the public has a right to expect that animals will, at the very least, be given the minimal protections conveyed by the AWA. The failure of IACUCs to ensure that this modicum of humane treatment is applied results in immense suffering for animals used in sometimes painful, often distressful, and ultimately lethal experiments. To learn more, please visit stopanimaltests.com. For free stickers and information on what you can do to help, visit peta2.com.

Alka Chandna, Ph.D.
Laboratory Oversight Specialist
Laboratory Investigations Department
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

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