PETA’s investigator complained to both supervisors and management, finally going to the IACUC, which is ultimately responsible for the care and use of animals at UNC. She informed the IACUC that animals were being denied veterinary care and proper euthanasia, that they were being left in their cages instead of being put out of their misery, and that live animals were being placed in the dead-animal cooler, among other things. The IACUC visited the Thurston Bowles Building’s animal rooms to inspect and to speak with the animal care staff.

• After the members of the committee left, PETA’s investigator was told by her supervisor that “no one wants to see the IACUC involved. … We try to keep IACUC out of here.”
  
  
• Almost immediately, researchers who had animals in the rooms inspected by the IACUC arrived to conduct damage assessment. The following excerpt is from the investigator’s log notes: “Apparently, Mike called Debbie and told her that the IACUC was there, and she immediately came down (approximately 3:30 p.m.), got #126948, and carried her out of the building without euthanizing her. Within minutes, she and Heather were both back in the building talking with Mike. … They were mad, and I heard Debbie say, ‘We could have had our animals taken away.’ I passed them twice and said, ‘Hi,’ but they did not respond to me.”

In addition to removing sick animals from the building, animal care personnel started to change the way that they reported animals in order to avoid trouble from and/or detection by the IACUC. The following excerpts are from the investigator’s log notes:

• “Bunch’s mouse #53518 has severe lesions on his entire body, and yesterday his green card said that he needed to be euthanized. Today, the green card is gone and the red card says, ‘Old wounds healing. Recheck on 2-22-02’—a week from now!!! Trisha was the supervisor today, and I showed her this mouse, and she called Meri about him. When Trisha saw that she had written, ‘Recheck on 2-22-02,’ she said ‘Jesus Christ! That’s a week!’”
  
  
• “Bunch’s mouse #22588 has a vaginal prolapse and blood on the cage. That red card says, ‘Observe mouse in one week and record observations.’”
  
  
• “Yesterday, I reported Samulski’s #63484 (photos and video) who had head tilt and was emaciated and hunched. Someone had put a green card on this cage to report the tilt before, but it had not been entered into the computer. Today, Meri had written (on a red card), ‘Mouse still active and eating well, no dehydration. May be weight of ear tag. Observe weekly and record findings.’ I found this evaluation outrageous—the mouse does not have head tilt as a result of the weight of the ear tag and appears to be very uncomfortable.”
  
  
• “Yesterday, many of the cards had shown that euthanasia was recommended weeks ago, but most of the new cards did not mention euthanasia. Mike told me yesterday that after the IACUC members were here talking to me, they called the vet techs and really came down on them for not following up on sick animals and ensuring that they were euthanized if they needed to be. So seeing the cards that recommended euthanasia replaced by cards that had very ‘politically correct’ notes on them makes me think that the animal care will not improve as a result of the IACUC’s involvement.”

In speaking with members of the animal care staff, PETA’s investigator had her fears verified. Her supervisor admitted that he, too, had tried to improve the treatment of animals at UNC. However, he said that after failing repeatedly in his attempts to help the animals, he decided to just “go with the flow.” He told our investigator that what she was seeing (IACUC interviews and inspections) was a “screen put up to look good for a while, but give it a month and it goes right back.” Sadly, he was right. Just days after the IACUC’s visit, mice “raw and bloody from scratching” and “bleeding from the inner ear” were denied veterinary care and euthanasia as recommended, while researchers continued to use death as an “endpoint,” in violation of IACUC policy.

On May 8, 2002, Congress passed the Farm Bill (H.R. 2646) with Sen. Helms’ amendment mandating the exclusion of millions of the most commonly used animals—birds, rats, and mice—from any protection whatsoever under the AWA, dooming these sensitive, feeling animals to be sorely deprived, at UNC and in thousands of laboratories across the nation, of their most basic needs and of any consideration for their pain and misery. Birds, rats, and mice are no different from any other species in their ability to suffer.