A California-based group and its supporters nationwide are taking issue with research at the University of Missouri-Columbia that resulted in the deaths of six dogs. After filing a lawsuit against Mizzou over access to documents for animals used in research on the Columbia campus, organizers at the Beagle Freedom Project started looking into the university’s published research and found a study that raised a red flag for the group.
The study, published in the 2016 Journal of Veterinary Ophthalmology, was testing treatment for damaged corneas. Beagles were used in the study because dogs’ eyes are similar to human eyes. Download PDF Mizzou study in Veterinary Journal
According to the research, the dogs were given anesthesia and the cornea in each dog’s left eye was damaged intentionally by one of the researchers. The dogs were then given a topical acid treatment for their eyes to try and heal the damage. The hyaluronic acid treatment is a moisturizing agent.
The treatment didn’t work, and the dogs were later euthanized; their corneas were removed and used for additional research. University spokespeople would not comment on whether it was common practice to euthanize animals after a study.
A university statement said the study was approved by the campus’ Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and followed the rules of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.
The university said in a statement that the dogs were not in pain during the study.
The dogs “were anesthetized during the procedure and received pain medications during and following if any signs of pain were observed,” the statement said. “The dogs also received daily socialization and husbandry needs.”
Kevin Chase, vice president of the Beagle Freedom Project, disagreed.
“No reasonable person can deny that these dogs were in pain following the injury to their cornea,” Chase said in response to the university’s comments. “As everyone knows, the eye is an extremely sensitive part of the body. The (top layer) of the cornea is filled with thousands of tiny nerve endings.”
Chase’s group argues that a better way to go about this research would be to use medication on dogs that suffer from corneal damage independently.
“Caging dogs in a laboratory, intentionally damaging their corneas, and then killing them is about as ethical as picking people off the street and hitting them over the head with a pipe in order to test new concussion treatments,” Chase said in a statement.
In the study’s conclusion, the four researchers acknowledge the small sample size, saying that before the study started it was determined that 24 dogs would be required to detect a significant difference in the healing rates. But, such a study size “was deemed impractical given concerns of animal resources for this pilot study.”
The Beagle Freedom Project filed a lawsuit against the University of Missouri System this summer alleging the university was violating the state’s Sunshine Law for open records.
The suit says the university violated open records laws by creating a “discouraging fee structure” and charging more than $82,000 for public documents. The group asked for records for 179 dogs and cats on Mizzou’s campus.
The organization uses record requests to identify candidates for post-research adoption, Chase said. He said the university filed an extension on the deadline to respond to the lawsuit.
“We are confident we’ll get these records,” he said. “It’s just how long the university will drag out this process.”
You the reader can form your own opinion of this 