According to the Animal Welfare Act , all research done on “covered species” (meaning animals covered by the Animal Welfare Act) is supposed to be overseen and monitored by a Committee known as the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC for short). Among other things, the IACUC is responsible for addressing animal welfare concerns and for reviewing and approving “animal use” protocols (research studies that use non-human animals).
Instead, the IACUC at the University of Washington has acted like a rubber stamp, never seeing a research study that used non-human animals that they didn’t approve of, no matter how heinous the experiment.
In the UW’s Semi-Annual Report of program review, the UW’s research programs had 58 protocols with prolonged restraint (bats, birds, fish, mice, pigs, non-human primates, wild mammals). There were repeated instances of mice and rats dying due to lack of access to food or water. This type of neglect has been happening for years. Yet the committee in charge of overseeing and monitoring animal research at the UW (the IACUC) has done next to nothing about it.
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TAKE ACTION!
Speak up at the Monthly IACUC on the 3rd Thursday of the Month.
Every month, you have the opportunity to speak up for the animals in labs at the University of Washington! The University of Washington’s IACUC meets monthly to discuss various research protocols (study designs). You can check out their calendar here.
