The IACUC at Great Eastern University may have lost perspective in the reason for tracking animal numbers. Their current process of recounting animal numbers during the triennial review, and potentially again at euthanasia, could produce an inflation to the actual number of animals within a project. This could become a sticky situation, especially when disclosing animal numbers for category E studies, or for USDA-covered species. Regulatory and accreditation agencies may question the high animal numbers listed, bringing unwarranted attention to these protocols. We would caution against this idea of “pumping” animal numbers onto a protocol, as this seems counterintuitive to the goal of reducing animal numbers. Furthermore, by having Dr. Silverman submit multiple amendments to continually add animals to meet a moving target, produces additional administrative burden on the Principal Investigator (PI) and the IACUC Office. Instead, the IACUC could use the triennial review form as an opportunity to provide a retrospective look at the protocol, by addressing the number of animals used over the previous three years, and by justifying an adequate number of animals for the next three years. Consequently, the animals remaining housed in the vivarium may require a new cage card to display the appropriate protocol number, but should only be counted once. Therefore, we believe the IACUC should re-evaluate their process regarding animal numbers and triennial renewals.
There are no federal regulations outlining how to approach the counting of animals especially at the time of protocol renewal1,2. However, institutional and IACUC guidelines should be set to address how to handle animals that are still on a protocol at the time of renewal. Asking questions such as: What is the previous protocol number (if applicable)? How many animals have been used? Are there any animals currently housed in the vivarium? To reduce confusion, both the PI and IACUC should put special attention to the animal numbers used, being requested, and the number that is being carried over from the previous protocol.
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