OHSU responds to concerns raised by animal rights group

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently sent a letter to the president of Oregon Health & Science University. The letter alleges that animals have suffered in the university’s labs, including the Oregon National Primate Research Center, due to what PETA calls “flagrant, ongoing violations of federal animal welfare guidelines in OHSU’s laboratories.” Vickie Jarrell, director of the Animal Care & Use program at the university, along with Gregory Timmel, attending veterinarian at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, join us to respond to PETA’s concerns.

This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, obtained federal records about the deaths and injuries of laboratory animals at OHSU. They include monkeys, rodents and a ferret. The group alleges that these animals have suffered in the university’s labs, including the Oregon National Primate Research Center, due to what PETA calls flagrant ongoing violations of federal animal welfare guidelines. We’ve invited officials from OHSU you on to respond. Vickie Jarrell is the Director of the Animal Care and Use Program at the University. Greg Timmel is the Attending Veterinarian at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. Welcome to you both.

Vickie Jarrell: Thank you.

Greg Timmel: Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Miller: Greg Timmel first. So PETA cites specific incidents in the public record. I thought we could dig into just a few of them. Can you tell us first, what happened to two nonhuman primates, two monkeys, in August of 2020?

Timmel: Sure, I think you’re speaking of an incident that involved a cage washer and first, what I’d like to say is that although I’m the attending Veterinarian, I am one of 20 veterinarians here, and we have an animal care team that consists of almost 160 very well trained, educated animal care staff. In addition to veterinarians, we have 12 behaviorists, several of whom have PhDs and masters’ degrees in animal behavior and are specialists in primate behavior. We have veterinary technicians that are analogous to nurses in the human world and then we have veterinary technicians who are responsible for the day to day care, and whenever anything happens to any of these animals at the primate center, the whole staff is really devastated. Everybody, whether you’re a veterinarian or a behaviorist or an animal care technician, these people really get to know these animals over years. We have animals that have been here for over 30 years, in cases. So whenever anything happens, we’re devastated. This was one of the most devastating incidents that we’ve come across, and what happened was that tragically, two animals went into a cage washer and were in there for several minutes and ended up succumbing to injuries associated with this.

Miller: Can you help us understand the physical setup of the cage washing systems, so we can understand how something like this could happen?

Timmel: Sure. So first off, I can say that we have close to 5,000 nonhuman primates, mostly rhesus macaques at our center, about 3,000 of them are housed outdoors in either large one acre, eight one acre corrals, where they can be in groups of 150 or more, and then in sheltered housing areas, they all have shelter. But the other animals that are assigned to specific research projects are held indoors, and they need to be in cages and they’re almost always in cages with a buddy, so they have a partner or even more than one animal, to address their social housing needs. It’s essential that these cages be sanitized, cleaned for the welfare of the animals. And oftentimes this takes place using a cage washer. And a cage washer is an automated machine. Essentially, the caging is placed into that machine and a wash cycle is completed and then the animals are placed from a dirty cage into the clean cage. Tragically, what happened was that in this case, due to human error, we had two animals that were not removed from that cage before that cage was placed in the cage washer.

Miller: Do you have a sense for how somebody could fail to notice that there were two primates inside a cage before they put the cage into this machine?

Timmel: So once again, when something like this happens we perform a root cause analysis. And in this instance, this was such a devastating, tragic situation that there were multiple investigations that took place. We looked at all sorts of things including training, we looked at procedures, and what we’re doing as far as how these things take place. And as I said, we look at our SOPS, standard operating procedures, that is, and unfortunately in this case the SOPS were not followed. We realized that what we always try to remove human error from the equation. And we refined processes. We refined our SOPS. We improved our training, and this is what we do any time any incidents such as this take place. There were multiple factors that contributed to this tragic human error. And we address them, each one of them and do our best to ensure that these sorts of things never, ever happen.

Miller: Vickie Jarrell? What changed as a result of that deadly accident?

Jarrell: Well, I think a number of things, Dave. We took a very close look at the opportunities for error, and a close look at how well our personnel were trained, and what kind of follow up we did to make sure that they weren’t drifting away from the standard operating procedures they’ve been trained to adhere to. So we instituted proficiency checks on a regular basis. And Dr. Timmel also instituted what he called a two-person verification, so that the person who jumps the monkeys from one cage to another -- it’s just a term that means how you handle them to take them from a dirty cage to a clean one, presents the cage to the front of the cage washer but does not push it in, and then someone else comes in and actually looks with a flashlight and examines the entire cage before it can go into the washer to make sure that nothing has been left unobserved. So, everybody gets busy and human error typically, in just about any setting, kicks in when people are trying to do a job and maybe they’re not entirely thinking all the time of what they’re doing, but they just act, and that break in the process of taking a second set of eyes and placing it on the procedures, is one way that we can prevent this from ever happening again. So that was a major change.

Miller: Were any staff disciplined or let go as a result of this?

Jarrell: You know, ‘discipline’ is a rough word. I think it boiled down to whether or not someone was well suited for the job; and the person who was directly involved, does no longer work for the organization, for the University. But I don’t know that ‘discipline’ is how you define that.

Miller: How would you define it?

Jarrell: An ill fit. We do our very best to train people and to observe them and make sure that they are going to fit into the positions that we place them in. But every now and then, we are human and we, meaning we as observers and supervisors, but also as the people conducting work, might get distracted and maybe something happens, and unless you have 100% focus on what you’re doing all the time, maybe you don’t fit in that position quite as well as we would hope that you would.

Miller: The PETA letter states this  ‘...such problems will continue unless a strong deterrent is implemented. Principal investigators must be informed that if federal animal welfare regulations or guidelines are violated in connection with their laboratories, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee will withdraw approval for the protocol and revoke animal experimentation privileges from the investigator.’  Now, if I understand correctly, we’re talking about different groups of people here -- that the investigator would be a scientist who is using some of these animals for their research, which might be a different person than somebody who’s washing a cage. But, I think that their broader point here is what I’m interested in. What are the current protocols, if the Committee rules, that the Institution’s rules aren’t followed? What happens in terms of Human Resources?

Jarrell: I can speak to what happens from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee’s perspective.  An investigation would be launched anytime anyone would report a concern or perhaps a noncompliance, it’s not really a violation, but they might recognize that something was not done precisely as defined in the protocol that had been approved by the IACUC or the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee that would get reported to my office. And we would launch an investigation which would be direct communications with those persons involved, and gathering facts, and then those facts would be taken to the entire IACUC Committee, which is comprised of not only scientists who use animals as the research models, but also includes public members and non-scientists to get the perspectives of those people on the problem and how best to address it. So there are a number of different things that that committee would discuss related to the incident. Whether or not the PI - principle investigator - the scientists followed the rules. If he or she did not, then where did they break them, and what is the consequence, and what type of actions should be taken, so that their program either is brought into line with what we assure the federal government we’re going to do, or their experimentational program is basically ended.

Miller: Has that happened before?

Jarrell: We have suspended Institutional Animal Care and Use Protocols, because the Committee felt that the PI did not have good control of the oversight of the program in their laboratory.

Miller: Greg Timmel

Jarrell: And so,...

Miller: Just to move on to a bigger issue here. Greg, PETA has focused on some specific incidents that you reported to the federal government. But they obviously have a bigger agenda here, which is not a secret. It’s what they’ve been pushing for, for decades. They are urging their supporters to quote, ‘Urge OHSU to shut down the Oregon National Primate Research Center.’ What would that mean for research at OHSU?

Timmel: Well it wouldn’t be just OHSU, this would affect science in the nation as a whole. There are seven National Primate Research Centers that all work closely together to improve human health and animal health as well, and also to address critical needs such as the COVID pandemic. I’ll tell you right now that without primate research we would not have a vaccine or vaccines against this. Our Primate Center in Oregon is an essential part of this consortium and we really need these animals right now, in order to move forward. For example, we need to be ready for the next pandemic and without monkeys, we’re not going to be able to be ready. For something like that to happen, that would be a tragic loss that would affect science in the United States, even all over the world.

Miller: What has to happen before a scientist at OHSU, in particular, can use an animal model, you know, a nonhuman primate or or any other animal in an experiment?

Timmel: That’s an excellent question. What I would say, and Vicki can contribute to this as well. But the first thing is, using an animal or working with an animal in research is the last thing, we only work with animals on research projects if there is no other option available. So working with cell culture, that sort of thing, computer modeling, if possible, those things happen before we get to the point where we would go to an animal study. But once that determination is made, boy, it’s a multi-step process that involves putting together a grant that would go through rigorous review, typically. Much of our funding comes from the National Institutes of Health. So there would be a very rigorous scientific review for that. If the funding is made available, these researchers have to submit an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee Protocol, that also is reviewed by veterinarians and before it even gets to the committee and often is adapted or adjusted before it is finally approved. If the researcher themselves or someone in their lab is going to be directly working with the animal to collect data or that sort of thing, they have to go through an awful lot of training and a lot of that work, the hands-on work with the animals at the primate centers including our own is centralized. So we have this team that I told you about, the animal care staff that are actually doing much of the hands-on work with these animals and working closely with the researchers to provide for their welfare and to support the scientific process. And I want to stress that this is really a team effort. It’s not just the animal care staff that I mentioned several times, but the researchers also, they are dedicated to animal welfare and to treating these animals well, because that is just the right thing to do. And it’s really important for the science, and all of us here realize that working with these animals, whether it’s a mouse on the central campus or a monkey at the primate center is a privilege and with that comes responsibility and so that is taken seriously and needs to be.

Miller: Greg Timmel and Vickie Jarrell. Thanks very much for joining us.

Jarrell / Timmel: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Mille: Greg Kimmel is the Attending Veterinarian at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. Vickie Jarrell is the Director of the Animal Care and Use Program at OHSU.

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