Many Brown researchers spend their days working with mice, bats and primates, a practice that many members of the community call a scientific necessity. But others say they find animal research morally ambiguous, an opinion that has become especially salient due to a recent complaint filed against a Rhode Island Hospital study for alleged mistreatment of pigs. In the study, led by Frank Sellke, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the Alpert Medical School, researchers examined alcohol’s effects on the porcine cardiovascular system.
Animal ethics across Ivies
Violations in animal research protocol have been the subject of debate at Ivy League universities for many years.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine published a report in 2011 on Ivy League Animal Welfare Act violations, citing Penn as the most egregious offender, followed by Princeton and Yale, which were tied for second.
Though the committee ranked Brown as the third-best Ivy League school, they cited the University for 35 violations of the Animal Welfare Act and noted, “Students used animals in surgical experiments not approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Two had to be euthanized.”
The allegations were based on United States Department of Agriculture reports. Some Ivy League administrators found fault with the report’s analysis of these statistics because they did not account for the size of the research institution, the Yale Daily News reported at the time.
The report incited more volatile reactions among students at several universities. Students at Penn took to the streets with protest flags, criticizing their school for the mistreatment of animals that led to a puppy dying, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported at the time.
More recently, Harvard has come under scrutiny for its primate research practices. Last September, researchers at the New England Primate Research Center were charged with violating the Animal Welfare Act multiple times over the last several years. Since 2010, at least nine mammals, inlcuding a goat and monkey, have died in Harvard research facilities as a direct result of protocol violations, according to the report. In December, Harvard was found guilty by the USDA of 11 violations of the Animal Welfare Act and fined $24,036, the Harvard Crimson reported at the time.
‘Protocol at all times’
Since 1966, the Animal Welfare Act has regulated the use of animals in research. It has been amended at various times, most recently in 2008.
Under this act, every institution that uses animals for scientific research must have an Institutional Animal Care and Uses Committee, which comprises researchers, non-scientists, a veterinarian and unaffiliated members of the community.
The committee follows national guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health, according to its website.
“Every animal that gets used for research at Brown has to be covered by a protocol at all times,” said Rebecca Burwell, chair of Brown’s Animal Care and Uses Committee and a professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences. “Before you touch an animal you have to have training and you have to have a protocol that spells out what you’re doing, how many animals you’re going to use, and exactly what you’re going to do with the animal.”
Burwell said the committee always asks, “Is the potential benefit of this research worth the use of these animals? Is the potential human good worth the use of these animals?”
“It’s a judgment call,” she said. “And there are always gray areas.”
All Ivy League schools are also accredited and evaluated by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, an independent nonprofit organization that advocates “humane treatment of animals in science,” according to its website.
Rights and responsibilities
Despite the recent complaint against Sellke’s procedures and the 2011 report by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, most students interviewed said they were unaware of any potential animal welfare violations at the University.
Benjamin Flakoll ’16 has had hands-on experience working with mice in a lab run by Ruth Colwill, associate professor of psychology. With Colwill, he worked on a memory experiment to see if mice could predict which cage they would be placed in based on pattern conditioning. Flakoll said that he and everyone else in the laboratory had to undergo extensive training protocols before they were allowed to handle the animals.
“The mice were kept very well and had a very good quality of life, and we treated them very, very carefully,” he said.
Emily Longman ’15 worked in Professor of Biology James Simmons’ lab training bats for flight simulation studies. She said that teaching everyone in the lab the proper handling of the bats was the highest priority. “There was a ridiculous amount of training. And the bats are in a very specific area of BioMed (that) has so many precautions to get in there, to keep them safe,” she said.
But Adam Horowitz ’16, the University’s People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals representative, wrote in a statement that researchers’ treatment of animals is “cruel.”
“Forcing baby pigs to consume a half bottle of wine or one fourth bottle of vodka every day for weeks and then intentionally giving them heart attacks is wrong and it would be illegal if it happened outside of the laboratory,” he wrote.
Burwell said the concept of animal research can be looked at from two different standpoints.
“I think of it as an animal welfare approach versus an animal rights approach,” Burwell said. From the animal welfare approach, “we as humans are responsible for animals,” she said. “We are obligated to use them in the most humane way possible.”
The animal rights standpoint asserts that “animals have the same rights as humans do,” Burwell said. From that perspective, “if you could save one hundred children by sacrificing a single rat then you wouldn’t do that, because that would be violating the animal’s rights,” she said.
Burwell added that she supports the animal welfare approach. “I can’t say that I don’t have moments of doubt. But pretty much I think yes, if I can do an experiment using 30 rats that will save a human child, I think it’s worth it.”
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