Reports published following two federal inspections at Dartmouth Medical School catalogue over a dozen violations against the Animal Welfare Act, including an incident in which a live hamster was accidentally placed in a freezer, according to an article in the New Hampshire Union Leader. The inspections also revealed several primates that showed signs of psychological distress, the Union Leader reported.
The violations were reviewed by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which conducted inquiries at DMS in June and October and found several errors, most of which were administrative mistakes in filing paperwork or recording medications.
Although animal rights groups have complained about the errors, APHIS imposed no sanctions on DMS, the Union Leader reported.
One of the infractions occurred when a technician placed a live hamster in a freezer overnight, according to P. Jack Hoopes, the director of the Comparative Research and Surgical Research Laboratories at DMS. The technician believed the hamster had been successfully euthanized, Hoopes said, but it was discovered alive in the morning and was subsequently put down humanely.
"One of the technicians in one of our labs made a mistake," Hoopes said. "She didn't give enough carbon dioxide [to euthanize the hamster]."
The technician was fully trained and had successfully euthanized other hamsters before, he said. The College reported the incident to APHIS after the hamster was discovered, according to Hoopes.
"If we find something that might be a violation, we are obligated to report ourselves," Hoopes said.
A second animal testing violation concerned four monkeys used as subjects for behavioral research. Three of the monkeys showed psychological distress and one was significantly underweight, according to the Union Leader.
The monkeys had exhibited the symptoms when they arrived at the lab and were still acclimating to their new environment during the inspection, Michele Martino, the assistant director of the laboratories, told the Union Leader.
The underweight monkey was thin and "not a big monkey" when it arrived, according to Hoopes.
"Now [the monkeys] are housed in pairs, when possible, and we have added enrichment material," he said, referencing ways that lab officials have tried to alleviate the primates' emotional problems.
APHIS is the federal body responsible for "administer[ing] the Animal Welfare Act," APHIS spokesman David Sacks said.
"Our inspectors have to go in at least once a year to facilities [that conduct animal research]," Sacks said. "[The facilities] need to submit to USDA an annual report, basically a complete rundown of their research."
Sacks said he could not comment on whether the violations were out of the ordinary for an animal research institution.
"We try and educate [the facilities] to bring them into 100 percent compliance, and we hope to see nothing like this, but the reality is most of the time we will find something," he said.
Although the most recent report "happens to be more significant" than reports from previous years, according to Hoopes, APHIS generally uncovers some sort of violation during most inspections. He added that the laboratory staff has corrected the faults found by the 2009 inspections.
