Harry Schwartz, M.D. was a skilled cardiac surgeon with many years of experience performing heart transplants, valve replacements, and other technically challenging procedures at the Great Eastern University hospital. Schwartz also had a long history of using dogs and swine for cardiac research and teaching. Therefore, the members of the Great Eastern IACUC raised no objections when Dr. Amos White listed Schwartz as the cardiac surgeon on his IACUC protocol. The protocol only required Schwartz to ligate the main cardiac arteries of adult mice. The animals were meant to recover from the procedure.

Unfortunately, all five of the mice operated on during the first day of surgery died before any of the school’s veterinarians were advised of the problem. Later that day a veterinarian heard of the deaths and questioned Schwartz. Schwartz said that it was reasonable for some mortality to occur at first because his surgical technique was being perfected. Nevertheless, the veterinarian told Schwartz to immediately stop his participation on the protocol until the IACUC could review the circumstances surrounding the animals’ deaths.

When questioned by the IACUC, Schwartz said that he had truthfully answered all the questions on the IACUC application form. Specifically, he had responded that he was a board-certified surgeon with over 30 years of experience with cardiac surgery and he had operated on animal hearts on many previous occasions. However, the protocol application never specifically questioned if he had performed on mice the cardiac procedure he was to do for White, so he never addressed that subject. Although the IACUC could not understand how Schwartz could blatantly misrepresent his expertise, Schwartz argued that there was no misrepresentation at all and that the fault was with the IACUC for not asking more specific questions on the application form. He told the committee that the deaths had occurred before the mice had emerged from anesthesia, and that now he was confident that he had perfected the skills needed to perform the technique and he was ready to proceed with the protocol.

What are the next steps to be taken by the IACUC?