As a curious six year old child, Michelle Montfort found a deer tick climbing up her leg and asked her mother if she could keep it as a pet. Her mother screamed and removed the scurrying arthropod, but Montfort never lost her fascination with ticks. Now, as Dr. Michelle Montfort, an associate professor at Great Eastern University, she submitted a grant to the NIH for a tick-related study to be performed in collaboration with a large number of local private animal hospitals. The hospitals' role in the study would be to remove attached ticks that were found during a general examination of privately owned pet dogs. The ticks would be placed in a preservative solution and Montfort would be informed that the ticks were ready for her study. The species of tick was immaterial as was the reason for the dog being brought to the hospital. The dogs were simply a convenient way for Montfort to gather ticks that had recently been attached to an animal.
In her previous research Montfort did not need an IACUC protocol because she gathered ticks by dragging a white sheet across grassy areas near the school. She used those ticks immediately after they were picked off the sheet. Therefore, when she was informed that her new grant application received a very favorable priority score, she was surprised that the school's grants management office requested that she obtain IACUC approval before her potential funding could be finalized. She maintained that she wasn't studying dogs at all; she was studying ticks and the veterinarians at the hospitals would have removed the ticks whether or not they were to be used for her research. But the grants office said that she mentioned the role of the dogs on the Vertebrate Animals Section of her grant application and she should have realized that she would need IACUC approval.
Who is right, Montfort or the grants management office? If IACUC approval is needed would the participating animal hospitals have to be inspected semiannually by the IACUC? What additional considerations might there be for Great Eastern University or the participating animal hospitals?
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Silverman, J. When does 'animal involvement' become 'animal use'?. Lab Anim 45, 251 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.1043
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.1043
