Animal rights group demands suspension of researchers with violations
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Please contact UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and insist on the termination of the protocols that SAEN focused on with the news media and the suspension of researchers with violations. Gene Block |
http://dailybruin.com/2014/07/17/animal-rights-group-demands-suspension-of-researchers-with-violations/
Animal rights group demands suspension of researchers with violations
By Jeong Park, DailyBruin.com, Thursday, July 17, 2014
Animal rights protesters gathered on Monday at Meyerhoff Park to call
for the suspension of several UCLA researchers who did not comply with
federal guidelines on animal research.
Stop Animal Exploitation Now!, which organized the protest, said in a
press release that it wrote a letter last week to UCLA Chancellor Gene
Block urging him to suspend nine researchers for their misconduct. There
have been at least 19 reports of noncompliance from UCLA researchers
from December 2012 to June 2013, the organization said.
The organization acquired reports of noncompliance that UCLA submitted
to the National Institutes of Health by filing records requests under
the Freedom of Information Act, said Michael Budkie, co-founder and
executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now!
UCLA’s self-reported violations include depriving animals of food and
water without approval and injecting tumors into mice after the protocol
had expired, according to the organization’s documents.
In a statement on Tuesday, UCLA said its officials identified all of
those violations and proactively reported them to the National
Institutes of Health’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare.
Dr. James S. Economou, the vice chancellor for research at UCLA, wrote
to the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare when reporting these
violations that UCLA has taken actions against noncompliance, such as
stopping the unapproved work and in some cases retraining researchers,
according to documents sent from Stop Animal Exploitation Now! to the
Daily Bruin.
The university said that none of the reports resulted in fines or
penalties from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the
National Institutes of Health’s parent agency, and that UCLA takes all
noncompliance issues seriously.
Julia Orr, the spokeswoman for Stop Animal Exploitation Now!, said the
organization is targeting UCLA in its protests because it believes the
university has shown a pattern of noncompliance. In December 2010,
UCLA’s animal research laboratory received a warning for animal rights
violations for acts such as not providing enough supervision over those
in charge of handling animals. UCLA said it promptly corrected those
violations.
The organization has held multiple protests on campus in past years to
protest animal research at UCLA, saying that it is ineffective and
inhumane. The group also filed a lawsuit in December against the UC
Board of Regents, demanding that UCLA release documents regarding its
animal use in research.
In December, UCLA declined to release the requested documents, saying
that releasing such information has endangered researchers in the past.
The lawsuit is ongoing, Budkie said.
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