Delaware research animals could be adopted under new legislation

Margie Fishman | The News Journal

More than 7,000 animals, including 126 dogs and cats, were used for research in Delaware last year, according to federal data. Some of them emerged healthy and a state senator wants to ensure they find loving homes.

Sen. Jack Walsh's bill would require state-funded universities and laboratories to work with area shelters and rescue groups to transition cats and dogs from behind bars into their forever homes.

"I'm a pet lover," explained the Stanton Democrat, who adopted his Labrador retriever mix from the Delaware Humane Association. "I want to make sure at the end of the day, when pets are done their testing days ... that they are available for adoption."

SB 101, which lists nine other state legislators as co-sponsors, advanced out of the Senate Health, Children and Social Services Committee on Wednesday. Walsh says he's confident the legislation will be adopted before the General Assembly wraps up its session June 30.

USDA records show that the University of Delaware, Delaware Technical Community College, the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children and SDIX, a Newark biotechnology company, all conduct research on animals. DelTech has used cats and dogs.

For 17 years, DelTech partnered with First State Animal Center and SPCA in Camden to give veterinary technology students hands-on experience monitoring the health of shelter animals, university spokeswoman Christine Gillan said. The shelter identified animals in need of physical exams, blood tests, vaccines and dental care provided by the students. Students also assisted with spay/neuter surgeries conducted by a veterinarian. No animals were euthanized under the program, Gillan said.

"The majority of vet tech programs today are using this shelter model for student training," she added.

First State SPCA Director Kevin Usilton reiterated that all the homeless animal participants were in need of medical care and not used in research experiments.

The program was discontinued last year for lack of space, Gillan said. Students now partner directly with local veterinary offices.

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Asked about using shelter animals as a training tool, Walsh said he'd prefer that private pet owners work directly with universities to educate students about proper medical care.

While experiments on homeless pets make national headlines, the reality is that most dogs and cats used in research are bred in laboratories or by private companies that sell to labs. Many spend their days locked in 3- to 24-square-foot cages, only to be euthanized after the research project is finished, according to animal advocacy groups.

This month, the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center halted planned tests on narcoleptic dogs, after facing intense scrutiny by local politicans. The proposed research involved giving 18 narcoleptic Dobermans antidepressants or methamphetamine before killing the dogs to study how the drugs affected the production of histamines in their brains.

Nationally, the majority of research dogs are used for pharmaceutical testing, since regulatory agencies require drugs to be tested on non-rodent species to measure toxicity levels. Beagle puppies are favored candidates, animal advocates say, because of their manageable size and temperament. Some of the dogs undergo devocalization surgery, which prevents them from barking and disturbing lab technicians.

Cats are used extensively in neurological and immunodeficiency studies.

More than half of Americans oppose the use of animals in scientific research, according to a 2014 Pew survey. Proponents argue that animals' genetic, physiological and behavioral similarities to humans make them indispensable contributors to medical breakthroughs, such as the discovery of the rabies vaccine and the use of insulin in treating diabetes.

UD devotes an entire page on its website to answering questions about animals involved in its research. The site highlights the university's mission to ensure "the humane care of all animals used in approved research and teaching," noting that alternatives to live animals are used whenever possible.

From 2013 to 2015, UD experimented on more than 1,800 white-footed mice, according to USDA statistics. The wild mice were not confined to a lab, but studied in their natural habitat, university spokesman Peter Bothum said. The university also conducts research on laboratory mice and rats, poultry, cattle, horses, birds, frogs, fish and shellfish, but is not required to report those numbers to the USDA.

"As a major research university, UD is involved in a broad range of studies pertaining to human and animal health, from cancer and heart disease in humans, to climate change impacts on chickens and lameness in cows," Bothum said.

So far, five states — New York, Minnesota, California, Connecticut and Nevada — have passed laws creating a pathway for adoption for cats and dogs used in research, at the urging of animal rights groups that promote advancing science without harming animals. In Illinois, where the National Anti-Vivisection Society is based, the bill is awaiting the governor's signature.

Marcia Kramer, the nonprofit's director of legal and legislative programs, acknowledges that cats and dogs represent the minority, or less than 1 percent of the more than 820,000 research animals reported to the USDA last year. But she hopes their standard of care will improve if researchers keep adoption top of mind.

"Every individual animal treasures his own life, whether they know it or not," she said.

The USDA is responsible for enforcing the Animal Welfare Act, the only federal law that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition, transport and by dealers.

The total number of animals used in research is unknown and far surpasses the USDA's count, according to animal rights groups. Mice, rats, birds and fish, which are estimated to account for 95 percent of animals used in research, are excluded from the Animal Welfare Act and from annual reporting. Similarly, facilities experimenting on these species are not inspected by the USDA.

Delaware State University, for instance, does not file a formal report with the USDA but has a daily inventory of 3,200 mice, goats and fish used in experiments, according to university spokesman Carlos Holmes. In the case of farm animals, the university researches ways to reduce or eliminate parasites, he said.

At Nemours, less than 5 percent of research projects involve animals, according to spokeswoman Karen Bengston.

Walsh said he was surprised to learn that neither the state Department of Agriculture nor the Office of Animal Welfare monitors research animals.

"You would think the Office of Animal Welfare would have more accessible numbers," he said.

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Animal Welfare Director and former state Sen. Patricia Blevins said she supports giving laboratory cats and dogs a second chance.

"OAW would work with shelter partners to help facilitate the process to help these animals find permanent homes," Blevins said in a statement.

Despite its warm and fuzzy message, the legislation has encountered pushback from universities that don't want the government meddling in their research protocol.

University lobbyists have argued that their clients already have adoption programs in place for students, faculty and staff, and that the proposed changes would contribute to shelter overcrowding. Similar bills have failed to gain traction in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Of the estimated 7,100 Delaware research animals reported to the USDA, more than 1,000 experienced pain and were treated with pain medication, according to 2016 federal data. The vast majority were rabbits. Nationwide, nearly 70,000 research animals endure pain without medical relief.

SDIX, previously called Strategic Diagnostics Inc., uses the largest number of Delaware research animals regulated by the USDA, according to federal data. The facility doesn't experiment on cats and dogs but conducted research on more than 7,200 other animals in 2015, most of them rabbits.

That number does not include the nearly 4,100 animals being bred or held for experimentation by SDIX, which markets proprietary DNA-immunization-based technology. The company, a subsidiary of OriGene Technologies, did not respond to a request for comment.

Overall, USDA data shows that animal research is on the decline over the last three decades. In 2015, the agency recorded the lowest usage of Animal Welfare Act-covered animals since it began collecting statistics in 1972. Last year saw a slight increase of 7 percent.

Animal advocates say those numbers are misleading, because they fail to account for the spike in genetically engineered mice. A study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics found that the total number of lab animals increased by at least 73 percent from 1997 to 2012.

Because of spotty USDA data, it's difficult to know how many animals are being euthanized in research experiments and what exactly they're being used for, said Kramer of the Anti-Vivisection Society.

Following President Trump's inauguration, the USDA abruptly removed inspection reports and other information from its website concerning the treatment of research animals. Members of the public must now file Freedom of Information Act requests to access the data.

After the University of Illinois claimed that it had instituted a robust animal adoption program, the Anti-Vivisection Society filed a FOIA request to check its results.

In the end, Kramer said the data showed that the university's Urbana-Champaign campus used nearly 6,300 dogs and cats in research from 2010 to 2014, but less than one percent were adopted out.

"It's not a huge ask," she said of the pending legislation in Delaware. "It's just saying if you're using these animals and they're still healthy, then you should find homes for them when you're done."

Contact Margie Fishman at 302-324-2882, on Twitter @MargieTrende or mfishman@delawareonline.com.