In February UW made the news when it was 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. Though extensive review of UW documents is ongoing, here are some highlights from the 9-page report released to select local media.

The report focused on the IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee), the oversight group for animal research at the University of Washington. Basically they are the "police" for animal research. Their two primary tasks are to review protocols (research experiments) and to inspect animal research facilities at the UW. As such, items in the report focused on UW facilities and areas where the IACUC failed to do its job.

Under the category of facilities and what should have been identified during regular IACUC inspections, the report states:

"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)

"Deficiencies that were identified were not classified as significant or minor, and no time frame for corrections [was] detailed." (p. 2)

"None of the laboratories where animals were housed had emergency power or environmental alarms." (p. 3)

"There was no after hours mechanism for monitoring heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system performance in Guthrie, Hitchcock, Kincaid, Fish Teaching Research Facilities (as well as the campus based WaNPRC mentioned above) and alerting personnel to malfunctions." (p. 7)

"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)

Questionable procedures within the labs were also cited:

"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)

"At the Western Primate Facility, one hallway located outside of Room 124 (office), 125 (break room), and 115 (dirty cage wash) was divided by a taped line. One side of the line was considered a Biosafety Level (BSL) 2 nonhuman primate area requiring full personal protective equipment (PPE). The other side of the taped line was used by personnel to enter offices and a shared break room. No PPE was required on this side of the taped line. Personnel that were passing through the hallway to the break room without the benefit of PPE were exposed to SHIV-infected nonhuman primates and dirty nonhuman primate cages that were transported in the same hallway. 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)

(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]. Due to numerous problems Western has yet to begin work on the upgrade that began in 2003.)

"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, the UW IACUC itself was cited for numerous problems with its 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)

"The participation of the nonaffiliated member of the IACUC in protocol or programmatic review process was not readily apparent and/or adequately recorded for many of the protocols or semiannual facility reviews evaluated by the site team. Chronic nonattendance by IACUC members, especially those explicitly required by Public Health Service (PHS) Policy or US Department of Agriculture Animal Welfare Regulations (AWRs), implies a lack of participation in the oversight responsibilities of the IACUC." (p. 4)

"Minutes of the IACUC meetings did not reflect actual content of discussions regarding full Committee reviews of protocols or programmatic deficiencies." (p. 8)

At this point in time, the UW has until May 1, 2007 to demonstrate to AAALAC how it proposes to fix the problems cited in the report. It should be noted that the UW received the report on November 1, 2006 and only choose to release the information to the public in February 2007 in anticipation of FOIA document releases to PETA and Labwatch. Had citizen organizations not made those requests, it is reasonable to assume the University of Washington would never have informed the public.

For more information, check out LabWatch at http://www.labwatch.org.