MECHANISM FOR REPORTING PROBLEMS

Both the Animal Welfare Act and the Public Health Service Policy require each institution to investigate all complaints about suspected animal abuse or non-compliance with the laws.

For any serious or life-threatening complaint (determined by the IACUC), the results of the investigation must be forwarded to Federal authorities.

Any person (student or employee) who reports an alleged violation is protected from retaliatory action by both State and Federal law.

HOW TO REPORT PROBLEMS or DEFICIENCIES IN ANIMAL CARE AND TREATMENT

Should there be a minor problem in husbandry, please call one of the UAC facility supervisors: Husbandry Supervisor (626-6706) at the College of Medicine facility and Husbandry Supervisor (621-1621) at the Central Animal Facility on campus.
Should there be any problem in animal care during the conduct of a research or teaching project, please notify the Chair of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, (621-4580) and/or the Director of University Animal Care (626-6702).
In addition, a complaint may be made directly to the office of the Vice-President for Research: (621-3513).

ROOM ORDER IN UAC FACILITIES:

The primary mechanism for controlling the spread of disease agents is to separate groups of animals according to health status. UAC maintains six levels of separation and designates the "most clean" animals as "A" and the "most dirty" animals as "F". Each room has a large letter posted on the outside of the door. Should you have any questions, please speak with the facility supervisor. You may enter rooms in the same order that the letters fall within the alphabet.

example: You may enter an "A" room before a "C" room, before a "D" room and lastly a "F" room.

You may NEVER enter two animal rooms the same day in the reverse order.

example: You have mice in an "A" room and rats in a "B" room. You may not work in the "B" room and later the same day, enter the "A" room.

WHERE CAN ANIMALS BE KEPT:

The College of Medicine Facility is located in the Basic Science Building at the Arizona Health Science Center. The Central Animal Facility is located just south of the Vet Science/Microbiology building and the Psychology Facility on main campus. Unless special approval is granted by the IACUC, vertebrate animals must be housed in one of these three sites.

When the IACUC approves a different location, specific housing conditions must be maintained and the area will be routinely inspected by University Animal Care personnel. Without IACUC approval, it is illegal to keep any vertebrate animal for greater than 12 hours in any area (for example: laboratories, offices, dorm rooms, outside pens, homes). Furthermore, pets or wild caught animals ARE NOT ALLOWED AT THE UNIVERSITY without IACUC approval.

ANIMAL PROCUREMENT:

Specific requirements and information can be found in the University Animal Care User's Handbook. However, the important restrictions include:

If an investigator has more than one approved animal protocol, the protocol control number under which the animal was ordered MUST BE the actual project for which the animal is used!
No live, vertebrate animal may be obtained without prior IACUC approval, this includes animals which are purchased, donated or collected in the field.

All requests for animals (or animal parts/tissues) MUST BE routed through the Animal Order Specialist at 626-4511.

Animal use needs to be closely monitored for the following reasons:

to ensure that animals are legally obtained and transported according to strict federal guidelines. In general, animals must be transported in university owned vehicles so that all federal transportation guidelines may be observed.
to ensure that the number of animals on an approved protocol is not exceeded in a given year
to allow the University of Arizona to submit the proper records of annual animal use to federal authorities.

References:

1993 Report of the AVMA Panel on Euthanasia, J. Am. Vet. Med. Assoc. 202(3): 229-249

Education and Training in the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, National research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, DC 1991

Essentials for Animal research, A Primer for Research Personnel, National Agriculture Library, Beltsville, MD 1990

Alternative to the Use of Live Vertebrates in Biomedical Research and Testing, ILAR News, 32 (1): A1-A18 1990.

If you have any questions or would like some more information call the Animal Care office at 626-6702.

Take Quiz - You must achieve 85% or above to pass

Back to Training Modules

Back to Table of Contents

This web page is maintained by Certification Coordinator

Last updated: 01/02/08 gea