The University of Mississippi Medical Center has come under fire in a report produced by the Animal Justice Alliance and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, which accused UMMC of using millions of taxpayer dollars to poison lab rats by allowing the rodents to become addicted to drugs.
According to the report, “The University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Research Triangle Institute has received more than $5.6 million over the past 14 years for an experiment to determine if synthetic drugs like bath salts are as addictive as methamphetamine.”
Marc Rolph, UMMC associate director of public affairs, said the information released in regards to taxpayer dollars is inaccurate.
“These people say that we have been involved in a 5.6 million dollar project over 14 years, but it’s a much smaller project,” Rolph said. “We are using less than $50,000 and it’s internally funded.”
According to Rolph, animal testing is not only a viable way of receiving information, but is also the method that has received the most positive feedback.
“Most of the major discoveries for cures have been done, for the most part, on animals,” Rolph said. “If you did away with rats in research, you would do away with advances for future research.”
Contrary to the report, administrators at UMMC believe their treatment of lab rats is humane as well as necessary. Chief Public Affairs and Communications Officer Tom Fortner said UMMC strives to adhere to all regulations involving animal testing by treating these animals as if they were humans.
“We make sure to look for other ways of achieving an objective without using an animal as well,” Fortner said. “We also do not operate on baby rats since rats become adults at two months old.”
According to Fortner, UMMC conducts these tests in order to learn more about the addictive properties of various drugs. By using “self administration,” they can monitor how addictive a drug is based on if the rat presses a button repeatedly. However, the rats are limited on the amount of drugs they can consume.
“In the past, Mississippi has had the highest number of people in the country that showed up in emergency rooms with designer drugs in their systems,” Fortner said.
Despite UMMC’s rebuttal, this project has sparked both questions and concerns from UM students and faculty. The humanity of not only UMMC’s treatment of the lab rats, but also animal testers around the world, seems to be at the core of the controversy.
Katie Muldoon, second-year law student and UM Student Animal Legal Defense Fund president, said there are more accurate ways to gather research than current methods.
“These experiments are not only unethical and inhumane, but also incredibly unnecessary since the majority of results found in animal tests do not translate to human models,” Muldoon said.
Assistant law professor Antonia Eliason said UMMC should develop better practices to conduct research that aligns with current standards.
“UMMC should be using best practices in line with what other major research and medical facilities are doing,” Eliason said. “In these types of experiments, the potential benefits of the research can be questionable. To the extent we are not using best practices, we should bring our procedures in line with those standards.”
Eliason said it is important to find other research methods in order to eventually limit or end animal testing.
“Unnecessary cruelty to animals is unacceptable and we have a responsibility to conduct research as ethically as possible, particularly where animal testing is involved,” Eliason said. “To the extent possible, animal testing should be minimized or eliminated.”
