In an unprecedented move, members of a confidential group that oversees animal research at the University of Washington have sued their own school to block the release of their names to PETA.
In an unprecedented move, members of a confidential group that oversees animal research at the University of Washington have sued their own school to block the release of their names to an animal rights organization. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has been trying to obtain this information for more than a year, charging that the makeup of the university’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee violates federal law.
Every U.S. institution that receives federal money for animal research must have an IACUC with five or more members, including scientists, veterinarians, and at least one nonscientist and one person unaffiliated with the institution. That makeup is supposed to ensure that animals are properly cared for and only necessary experiments take place, according to the U.S. National Institute of Health’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare , which oversees these committees.
Early last month, UW announced it would release the names, saying it was compelled by the state’s open records act. Sullivan hired a lawyer and, along with four anonymous members of the IACUC, sued the school to stop the release. On 24 February, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order, ruling that the IACUC members’ fear of harassment “sharply” outweighed any “incremental knowledge” PETA was seeking.
In addition to staging on-campus demonstrations at UW—whose animal use program is among the largest in the country—PETA supporters have recently protested outside the homes of two officials affiliated with the school’s primate facility.
Sullivan acknowledges that neither she nor the IACUC veterinarian, whose names are both public, have been harassed at home. But she says her concern isn’t only PETA—it’s what more radical activists might do in response to publicity, as happened in “Pizzagate” and related incidents during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “My biggest fear is that someone else will take matters into their own hands.
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