The UW made the news recently when they were put on probation by AAALAC (Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care) for not maintaining their animal research facilities and not exercising proper oversight over animal research experiments.

AAALAC is a non-profit organization which performs assessments every three years. Not complying with corrections can mean a loss of accreditation and a loss of research money.

Following are some highlights from the 9-page AAALAC report.

"Serious deficiencies that had the potential to negatively impact the health, well-being, and safety of animals and humans were not being identified during the facility evaluations." (p. 2)

"The primate center had no mechanism in place for alerting key staff members and eliciting a response if there was an HVAC failure." (p. 7)

"In a number of laboratories, personnel areas (e.g., refrigerator for food, employee workstations) were immediately adjacent to and/or intermingled with animal housing and procedural areas and personal vehicles were used to transport mice." (p. 5)

"Other than a taped line on the floor demarking entrance to a BSL-2 area, there was no physical separation between SHIV-infected monkeys and personnel carrying their lunches to the break area." (p. 4)

(Author's note--This is the same facility that was going to be upgraded for work on the 1918 influenza virus (currently being worked on at other facilities.)

"At the time of the site visit, there was no pre-employment medical evaluation, or ongoing evaluations, for those employees who were subject to substantial risk in the animal care and use program, such as employees of the Department of Comparative Medicine who would be routinely exposed to allergens in ergonomic inquiries."(p. 5)

Finally, UW itself was cited for numerous problems with it's lack of process, objectivity and transparency;

"Out of approximately 250 new/renewed protocols submitted each year, approximately 1 - 3% of the protocols were brought up for full Committee review." (p. 8)

"The vast majority of protocols were reviewed by four permanent designated reviewers. Of these individuals, 3.5 were funded through the Office of Animal Welfare with three of those members having performance evaluations made by the Director of the University's Office of Animal Welfare. Given their salary source, these reviewers could be perceived as having a conflict of interest impeding their ability to perform unbiased protocol reviews." (p. 8)