The National Institutes of Health, citing the University of Connecticut Health Center for violating animal-welfare laws, has ordered it to return some grant money that had been provided for brain experiments on monkeys.
The university can appeal last week’s order to return $65,005 of an NIH grant that financed the work, The Hartford Courant reported.
Financial penalties by the NIH are unusual—the agency typically asks universities to fix deficiencies in the care of laboratory animals but leaves it to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to levy fines for violations.
The Agriculture Department fined the health center $5,532 last summer for seven violations, the Courant reported. Two of the three monkeys involved in the research died during the project. Researchers had drilled holes into their skulls and implanted steel coils into their brains to record eye movements. The study, which examined the coordinated control of the eyes by the brain, was designed to help diagnose and treat stroke, palsy, and other conditions.
The university voluntarily stopped the study in 2006, after money for the project ran out and allegations of improper animal care were publicly aired by a UConn graduate student, Justin Goodman. He is now a research associate at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Federal inspectors later reported that the health center had failed to handle animals “in a manner that did not cause stress, trauma, and unnecessary discomfort.” The citations alleged that the university had inadequately trained personnel, used outdated drugs and animal food, and kept animals in a dirty room with peeling paint.
The lead researcher, David Waitzman, had received about $1.7-million in federal funds since 1992, but the NIH’s order seeks reimbursement to cover only the period when violations were found, the newspaper said.
In 2002 officials on the university’s main campus, in Storrs, admitted to more than 50 violations of the Animal Welfare Act and agreed to pay a $129,500 fine for, among other things, the improper care and inhumane deaths of numerous laboratory animals. —Jeffrey Brainard
