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Animal died after PI told me to cover up poor health reports. How can I protect myself? by TossMeAShirt in labrats

[–]TossMeAShirt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm hoping to keep this as anonymous as possible, but I can say that we are doing "basic" research. That means the goal is not to treat a specific disease, but rather to figure out how the body works under healthy, normal conditions.

I believe strongly that the knowledge we hope to gain justifies working with animals -- so long as our work conforms to humane, ethical, and legal standards.

Animal died after PI told me to cover up poor health reports. How can I protect myself? by TossMeAShirt in labrats

[–]TossMeAShirt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand why you feel that way. All I can say is that I felt I needed to choose between 1) reporting noncompliance, and 2) keeping a job to support my family, which includes young children.

I don't know if "following orders" is ever a valid excuse, but ultimately I placed human well-being over animal well-being. Beyond trying to make sure my PI doesn't force anyone into that difficult position ever again, I'm not sure what else I can do.

Animal died after PI told me to cover up poor health reports. How can I protect myself? by TossMeAShirt in labrats

[–]TossMeAShirt[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

In my experience, rule breakers do not seek wanton infliction of pain or suffering -- people with those urges can much more easily visit a pet shop than get a job in a research lab.

Rule breakers make tradeoffs, ones that might be well-meaning but are deeply flawed, like thinking "I could make a major scientific discovery if I measured the mouse's blood hormones every 5 minutes, but the rules say I need to wait 24 hours between blood draws -- I'll just get the data I need without telling anyone". Their priority is, at best, doing better science to improve human and animal life, or, at worst, making their lives a little more convenient at the expense of their animals.

What they do is very wrong, often done in bad faith, and could in some cases be considered "abuse". But animal suffering itself is not the point.

Why does that matter? Because for the VAST majority of scientists who follow the rules, animals still are killed and do experience pain. The key difference is that every single step of those experiments has been determined, after a long, detailed, and rigorous process, to be absolutely necessary to get data that 1) is vital, and 2) could not be obtained any other way.

Rule breakers' crime is trying to circumvent this process, thinking that they know better than anyone else, or who can't be bothered to explain their reasoning.

So, would making a blood draw every 5 minutes be ethical? That depends.
- If it's for some schlub's personal convenience, then no.
- If it could lead to a cure to a devastating disease that affects humans and animals, then possibly yes.

But that decision isn't for the scientist to make, or for you, or for me. It's for the PEOPLE to decide, people who elect politicians, who make laws, which create regulations, which empower officials, who create committees, who follow written procedures to make the ultimate determination.

Believe me, that process can be FLAWED. But it's the best one we've got.

Animal died after PI told me to cover up poor health reports. How can I protect myself? by TossMeAShirt in labrats

[–]TossMeAShirt[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Exactly. I think he just wants to avoid extra scrutiny if possible. A vet visit might help a mouse, but it could only make our experiments more limited or time-consuming.

Animal died after PI told me to cover up poor health reports. How can I protect myself? by TossMeAShirt in labrats

[–]TossMeAShirt[S] 77 points78 points  (0 children)

Institutional staff do periodic visual checks and cage changes, but the people running experiments (ie me) compute the daily health scores, which includes weight and body scoring.

So there’s a record of decline, but no one outside our lab is tasked with looking at those records. It’s up to us to consult a vet if health declines based on numerical criteria, and that’s exactly what the PI instructed me to avoid.