IDA's Response to NIH Defence of Lisberger

December 18, 2002

Margaret Snyder, Ph.D.
Director, Office of Scientific Affairs
Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD 20892

Dear Dr. Snyder:

I am in receipt of a form letter from you dated October 1, 2002 responding to concerns about the invasive brain experiments conducted on rhesus monkeys by Stephen Lisberger of the University of California, San Francisco. Your letter makes several claims that are unsubstantiated by the evidence.

Claim #1: “In all of his work, Dr. Lisberger is required to use techniques that have been developed to minimize any pain or discomfort to the animals.”

The Lisberger’s “techniques” involve slicing open the eye and implanting metal coils inside; drilling the skull open to implant metal plates, protruding bolts and steel recording cylinders; preparing sites for stimulating electrodes (brain surgery); implantation of stimulating electrodes in the vestibular apparatus (more brain surgery); and ablation of the flocculus (damaging portions of the brain). During the experiments, monkeys are bolted into restraint chairs by the head, where they are forced to remain for up to eight hours a day, rotated on a turntable. The monkeys are subjected to water deprivation in order to keep them thirsty and willing to “perform” (move their eyes in a certain pattern) for a juice reward. In his protocol, Lisberger has acknowledged the use of “severe” water deprivation, for which the USDA has cited UCSF for federal Animal Welfare Act violations (see below).

This description of procedures is taken directly from the protocol approved by the UCSF Committee on Animal Research and obtained by In Defense of Animals through the California Public Records Act (CPRA).

Clinical records also obtained through the CPRA show many of the monkeys in Lisberger’s lab suffer from head implant-related infections. One monkey had a “severe bone reaction” and developed a “degenerative condition of his skull” but was kept alive for five months with no improvement to his condition. Another monkey was treated for infection so long that he became allergic to the medication. Still another had an infection so severe that he banged his head against the bars of his cage, bloodying the cage floor.

The records show that eye swelling and irritation from the eye coils are also common. One monkey had his eye “accidentally” punctured, but was used in an experiment anyway, after he was deemed recovered.

Several monkeys in the lab died prematurely, suffering from weight loss, self-mutilation, and/or diarrhea and dehydration. Many of these conditions were also cited by the USDA for federal Animal Welfare Act violations.

As just one example, I have enclosed the clinical records from Puck, a rhesus macaque in Lisberger’s lab. This monkey suffered was subjected to at least (since the records appear to be incomplete) six surgeries, suffered from infection from the head holder implanted into his skull, apparently so painful that it caused him to bang his head against the cage, eye irritation from the eye coils and a broken eye coil that had to be replaced, and a surgical wound that dehisced twice.

As a veterinarian, I am at a loss to understand how Dr. Lisberger’s highly invasive “techniques” are designed to alleviate pain and suffering to the primates involved in his experiments as you claim them to be.

Claim #2: “Moreover, the University of California at San Francisco must operate its animal facility in compliance with Federal regulations and policies governing the care and treatment of laboratory animals.”

Contrary to your claim, UCSF does not comply with federal animal welfare law. Between February 1998 and present, UCSF has consistently and repeatedly violated the federal Animal Welfare Act. If you take the time to read the enclosed inspection reports, you will see that these violations are serious and fundamental, relating not just to physical deficiencies, i.e. cage size, sanitation, and facility condition, but also to the university’s persistent deficiencies in veterinary care and research oversight. As you know, these are the cornerstones of a federally compliant animal care program. It is important to note that these violations have continued through the most recent USDA inspection completed in the fall of this year.

In 1999 USDA inspector Dr. Michael Smith observed, “…the deficiencies identified indicate that the IACUC does not have an adequate program for the humane care and use of animals…if the IACUC continues to accept unacceptable conditions, they are not doing their jobs.” This is a devastating indictment of UCSF’s entire program, yet corrections at UCSF have not been forthcoming. Indeed, nearly every subsequent inspection of UCSF’s labs (including one conducted as recently as September 2002) has found repeated and uncorrected deficiencies in IACUC oversight, investigator compliance and veterinary care.

The USDA has cited UCSF multiple times for AWA violations on the Lisberger protocol, and, in January 2000, UCSF paid a $2,000 penalty to the USDA for Lisberger’s transgressions.

The USDA only very rarely levies fines against research facilities. This demonstrates the severity of the violations committed by both Lisberger and UCSF. Lisberger’s violations include failure to follow his own protocols and provide veterinary care to his animals in a prompt manner, while UCSF’s include its IACUC’s failure to adequately monitor Lisberger’s experiments.

The Public Health Service Policy on the Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals requires compliance with the Animal Welfare Act. Compliance with the PHS Policy is a requirement for receipt of federal funds. UCSF has been in almost continual violation of the Animal Welfare Act – and consequently, the PHS Policy – for nearly five years. Further, NIH “enforcement” relies almost exclusively on a policy of “institutional self-regulation” where the IACUC is used to ensure compliance with PHS Policy at research facilities receiving NIH funds. However, the UCSF IACUC has been repeatedly cited by USDA as fundamentally deficient in its federally mandated oversight functions. Therefore, the NIH has no functioning mechanism to monitor animal welfare compliance at this institution.

Please inform us of NIH’s reasons for continuing funding to this institution, which is the fourth-largest recipient of NIH support, receiving in excess of $350 million in research funding annually. Please further inform us of what enforcement actions the NIH has taken against UCSF, especially in light of the abject failure of oversight demonstrated by the UCSF IACUC’s continuing violations of federal animal welfare laws.

Claim #3: “In terms of the scientific value of Dr. Lisberger’s research, both of his proposals were subject to a rigorous review process at NIH prior to initial award and with each competitive renewal.”

The NIH peer review process has a documented record of repeatedly ignoring animal welfare violations officially cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as well as general animal welfare concerns, despite the legal requirement that such issues be considered for peer review.

Would you please inform us of the last time that Dr. Lisberger’s research was peer reviewed, and whether his animal care deficiencies, including AWA violations, were considered during this peer review?

Claim #4: “[Lisberger’s experiments] offer a sound research investment for the NIH.”

In a past protocol obtained under the California Public Records Act, Lisberger attributed poor surgical outcomes on his monkeys to “bad luck.” The UCSF IACUC – in yet another instance of failed oversight – merely asked that Lisberger remove this reference. Of course, Lisberger’s simply deleting the words “bad luck” addressed nothing related to the fundamental questions regarding Lisberger’s methods and mindset raised by his use of these words. It did, however, fulfill a public-relations purpose, much as your letter of defense does.

Would you please inform us if Lisberger’s self-professed “bad luck” is indicative of the NIH’s “sound research investment” and “vigorous peer review”?

Claim #5: “Although he is conducting basic work in animals, his work has clinical implications for debilitating movement disorders and conditions that severely disrupt learning and communication.”

The credibility of your claims is, at best, questionable. Unlike you, even Lisberger has qualified his claims of human applicability with such caveats as “may” or “potential.” In past protocols submitted to the UCSF IACUC for review and approval, Lisberger uses the same conveniently generalized language as you, citing just one specific condition to which his research “may” be applicable: Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). However, Dr. Lawrence A. Hansen, an NIH-funded neuroscientist and AD researcher who has authored or co-authored 86 peer-reviewed scientific articles on Alzheimer’s alone – among the 131 articles he has published overall in some of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals – has reviewed Lisberger’s protocols and found even that qualified claim to be “one of the more ludicrous stretches from basic science to human application that I have ever encountered in my 20 years of research into Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases affecting human beings.” In fact, Dr. Hansen states that the neural pathway that Lisberger is studying is “one of the few neural systems not involved in AD! This cynical attempt to justify animal cruelty by linking it with a treatment for devastating human disease is disingenuous at best, and can more fairly be viewed as deceptive.”

Conclusion: In the Lisberger lab, rhesus monkeys are forced to live three years or longer housed alone, metal plates in their heads, metal bolts protruding from their skulls, metal coils in their eyes, steel cylinders drilled into their heads, and vision-distorting eyeglasses bolted to their faces for up to 12 weeks at a time. The monkeys have been documented victims of, among other things, inadequate veterinary care, dehydration, malnutrition, punctured eyes, degenerative skull conditions, bone infections, self-mutilation, weight loss and total failure of oversight.

The gross pain and suffering inflicted on intelligent and social primates is reminiscent of research conducted in the 1950s and 1960s, when few restrictions to protect animals in laboratories were in place. And indeed, the protocols have been found repeatedly to violate federal animal welfare laws.

It is long past time for the NIH to comply with its own Congressionally mandated policies and pull the funding plug on these gruesome, anachronistic experiments that have continued, virtually unchanged, for over twenty years. An honest analysis of these experiments will reveal that more than twenty years of publicly funding Lisberger’s experiments has resulted in little more than extreme suffering for untold numbers of monkeys, not the “clinical implications” you claim with such unsubstantiated certainty for the untold numbers of people still suffering from insidious diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Sincerely,

Elliot Katz, DVM
President
In Defense of Animals

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