Staff Editorial: UW needs to take better care of its animals

The UW is in serious hot water over the condition of its research animal care facilities. Officials from an independent organization, the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC), visited University facilities in June and were not impressed by what they found, according to the report released in November.

AAALAC cited numerous deficiencies that either could or already have caused harm to UW's research animals, which are primarily primates and mice. Among other concerns, the report flagged intense odor, poor ventilation, no alarms to warn of heating or air-conditioning failure and diarrhea outbreaks, according to a Seattle Times article.

For example, in July 2005, about 500 mice died in their cages after air-conditioning systems failed and the inside temperature reached 104 degrees.

In addition to the animals living in these conditions, people are working in potential at-risk environments.

The University has until May 1 to clean up these facilities and provide more humane care for its animals, or else the consequences could be dire. The UW risks losing accreditation over this, which would in turn result in a possible loss of valuable federal research grants. The problem is, more than $20 million is needed for stop-gap measures that would only fix the issues for a short time.

According to University officials, the animal facilities are in such a poor condition due to old buildings and a lack of funding. They have already begun working to correct the situation, but the fact is, there is not enough money to appropriately correct the problem in the long-term.

Our question is, how in the world did the UW allow itself to get in this mess? With animal research being almost as hotly contended as issues like abortion, one would think that University officials would have the good sense to go out of their way to prove the well-being of their research animals.

The UW losing accreditation for animal research is like an abortion clinic failing to pass a routine inspection. With such a controversial issue at stake, exemplary care of animals and animal facilities should be an obvious priority. What business does the University have doing medical research on animals if it cannot even properly fund its own program?

UW President Mark Emmert, in a talk with The Daily, said that he believes there is only one way to do animal research. "If we're going to do research with animals, we're going to do it the right way or not at all."

This is the best attitude for the University to have, and we hope to see it begin soon.