Remove Unethical Vet from the UW’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee

The University of Washington’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) is the committee responsible for overseeing the treatment of animals that are imprisoned at the University of Washington. It is the IACUC’s responsibility to review animal welfare concerns, and they have the authority to review and approve the animal research at the UW. Their membership must consist of at least one veterinarian. The veterinarian on the UW’s IACUC is Dr Kim Stocking, who also happens to be the Director of the UW’s Office of Animal Welfare.  During previous IACUC meetings, Dr. Stocking has said that the amount of pain that rats and mice experience “doesn’t matter”, that animal researchers are frequently incorrect when assessing how much pain animals undergo.

In August of this year, she dismissed the recent death due to starvation and dehydration of 10 mice and rats as “not a big deal” because “those things happen”. In April of this year, she dismissed another incident that resulted in the death of 2 rats because “stuff can happen”. In 2019, when discussing an incident that involved students and research staff illegally taking fish around Friday Harbor and not maintaining any records of their care, Kim again, said the issue wasn’t significant. This is just a handful of times in which Dr Stocking blew off animal welfare concerns.

Clearly Dr Stocking has no business overseeing the Office of Animal Welfare when she doesn’t take animal well-being even remotely seriously.

Please take a moment to contact the University of Washington President, Ana Marie Cauce at 206-543-5010 or email pres@uw.edu, and demand that Dr Stocking be removed from the IACUC and her postion at Director of the Office of Animal Welfare.