Irrespective of technical correctness, all parties should be able to use the episode as an occasion to review their practices candidly. The veterinary and animal care staffs are in the trenches, and should be the first to notice potential problems. The public intent of AWA regulations is to identify and correct preventable animal welfare concerns, not to catalogue technical violations. USDA inspectors should be able to provide editorial commentary on the relevance of their findings, rather than simply inventorying them in a dispassionate manner. Of course, they would have to understand the relevance of their findings, which often requires a dialogue with institutional personnel.
Dialogues don t occur in an atmosphere of fear.
Except when problems are clearly intentional, negligent, or persistent, the system ought to function to fix the problem, not the blame. Quit Pointing Fingers Guy B. Mulder, DVM, MS and Clifford R. Roberts, DVM, Dipl. Further, the PI has a responsibility to describe fully all animal procedures in an animal use protocol, and animals to undergo multiple survival surgeries particularly require full description and additional justification. Great Eastern did have an obligation to notify PHS of any changes or modifications that would affect the grant application. It s possible that a scientific study section may not agree that the groups were redundant.