During morning rounds, Great Eastern University (GEU)’s husbandry staff found an issue in one of the rabbit rooms. There were two cages marked as a singly housed males, but one cage was empty, and the second contained two rabbits. After a careful review of the records, it was determined that a lab member accidentally placed the two rabbits into the same cage when returning them to the vivarium. The attending veterinarian (AV), Dr. Tracy Thompson, was called to assess the animals. Thompson, concerned about the welfare of the male rabbits, indicated they must be immediately separated because they could start fighting. The Principal Investigator (PI), Dr. T. Guaio, was not totally surprised when Thompson informed him of the situation, and he immediately followed up with his laboratory technician, Li Wang. Dr. Guaio discovered that Li Wang had made the same error not more than a week ago. At that time, Wang rectified the situation immediately. Now, even more concerned, Thompson called the IACUC Chair and IACUC Director to discuss the matter.
Dr. Thompson was adamant that this was an allegation of non-compliance and that action needed to be taken immediately. Unfortunately, due to absences, it was impossible to get a quorum of the IACUC voting members together (even for an emergency videoconference) for a few weeks. In the interim, the AV terminated Wang’s access to the vivarium to mitigate the risk of ongoing animal welfare issues until the committee had the opportunity to consider the case. Since Wang was the only individual trained to perform the activity and Wang’s access to the vivarium was removed, one of the PI’s specialized procedures could not be conducted. During IACUC deliberation of the allegation of non-compliance, one member asked if the removal of Wang’s access to the vivarium was equivalent to suspending an animal activity since, in their opinion, it was “institutional intervention that results in the temporary or permanent interruption of an activity”1; and, if so, wasn’t an IACUC vote required to implement the suspension of an activity?
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