UW-Madison tops list for most animal welfare violations at top-funded universities, analysis reveals
The university received 35 violations within a two-year period, including incidents where animals suffered or were killed due to staff failures.
File photo showing a macaque, a species which are regularly used in animal tests in the US. Credit: Jo-Anne McArther/We Animals Media
The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) has been dubbed the “nation’s worst animal welfare violator” out of all top-funded universities, following a new analysis of university records.
For the analysis, researchers reviewed the number of animal welfare violations at the twenty institutions of higher education that received the most funding from the taxpayer-funded National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Published in the Journal of Animal and Environmental Law, the study analyzed violations from NIH case reports dated October 2021 through September 2023, and found various incidents in which animals suffered pain, injury, and death due to neglect, incompetence, and disregard by experimenters and staff.
UW-Madison topped the unenviable list, with thirty-five violations within the two year period. This included an incident where infant primates did not receive correct pain medication following cerebrospinal fluid collection, and another error where an injured macaque’s antibiotic medicine was mistakenly given to her uninjured cage mate instead.
The university’s violations also led to multiple deaths. Eight mice drowned after the wrong style of water bottle was used and subsequently poured water into their cage, while another violation led to the deaths of six rats after an error in anesthesia administration.
Among the other top offenders in the research were the University of Washington with 29 violations, the University of Pittsburgh with 28, the University of Michigan with 19, and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill with 17. In total, the researchers documented 231 animal welfare violations across the 20 educational institutions reviewed.
Researchers also noted that the violations analyzed in the study were self-reported, indicating that the actual number may be even higher.
“Animals are in danger every minute at UW-Madison and other negligent, careless universities,” says the study’s co-author Dr. Alka Chandna, who works for the Laboratory Investigations Department at PETA. “UW-Madison should lose its NIH funding and schools nationwide must switch to modern, human-relevant research.”
The study comes amid increased scrutiny around the efficiency of some government departments. Despite the hundreds of violations, the twenty educational institutions reviewed in the study collectively received more than $11.8 billion from the taxpayer-funded NIH in 2023 alone.
Research like this is adding to the growing public concern that taxpayer-funded experiments that use animals are not only cruel, but wasteful and inefficient too. Studies show that around 90 percent of basic research, most of which involves animals, fails to lead to treatments for humans.
With a current budget of $48 billion, NIH is estimated to spend nearly half of its annual budget on experiments on animals.
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