The animal rights group Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! (SAEN) released a complaint last month alleging violations of animal welfare procedures this past fall in BiHall’s Vivarium, the center for laboratory animal research on campus. In its complaint, the organization published a report filed on Nov. 19, 2024 with the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) alleging Middlebury's research team’s failures to comply with surgical procedural requirements, feeding schedules and laboratory safety protocols.
The concerns about multiple incidents throughout the month of September were initially reported by phone to the NIH on Oct. 31, 2024, prompting the official report filed and signed by Associate Dean of the Sciences Rick Bunt and Clarissa Parker, chair of the college’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. As per Public Health Service (PHS) requirements, the report detailed multiple issues that had been identified as well as corrective actions implemented after the problems were identified.
“We took immediate corrective actions as soon as we observed these issues in our lab and proactively reported these concerns to the National Institutes of Health as a measure of transparency. The NIH has supported our plan and this matter is now resolved. The health and welfare of our animals is a top priority and we continue to be attentive to maintaining the highest standards of animal care,” a college spokesperson wrote in the statement on the report, which was first reported by VTDigger last month.
Bunt and Parker declined to elaborate beyond the college’s public statement. Laboratory and vivarium staff also declined an interview request from The Campus.
Professor of Biology Mark Spritzer, who conducts research in the vivarium with student assistants, said that the issues from the fall have been resolved, and he declined to give further information.
“Middlebury College has high standards of animal care, following all federal guidelines carefully. As an IACUC member, I am not inclined to provide details on an internal issue,” Spritzer wrote in an email to The Campus.
Despite the college’s stated compliance with all Public Health Service protocols, Michael Budkie, executive director of the animal rights group Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!, addressed the group’s complaint to Middlebury College Interim President Steve Snyder on Jan. 20, 2025. His letter reiterated the mistakes that were made in the lab and described the relevant college employees as incompetent, then called for the termination of all researchers connected to the animal welfare violations this fall.
“I am contacting you today to insist that you take immediate action to terminate several Middlebury College staff who are responsible for multiple violations of federal regulations,” Budkie wrote in his complaint to the college.
Among the problems addressed in the college’s November report to the NIH were errors in rat surgical castration procedures, mix-ups in data reporting, confusion in post-operative care, the failure to remove sutures from animal subjects until 17 days after their surgery, improper water bottle and feed ration care, and misplacement of syringes and controlled substances.
“Due to the number of problems that have been identified over a short period of time, the following corrective actions are either in place now or are in the process of being completed,” the report stated. Bunt and Parker proceeded to clarify that the faculty researchers and student assistants would retake animal welfare guideline courses, develop new training programs for students working with animals and have restrictions on future animal surgical procedures.
“For a period of no less than one-year (thru 2025), students will not perform rodent surgeries in research directed by the [Principal Investigator]. This moratorium will allow students to focus more completely on animal care and welfare,” the report states. Bunt and Parker also wrote that the principal researcher would now be required to visit the vivarium every morning and afternoon for one year to ensure compliance with student activities involving rats.
An anonymous student who has worked with live animal subjects at Middlebury prior to the recent incidents stated that while the report was troubling, the limited incidents do not reflect their training experience or the care they believe students provide for animals in the college’s research.
“I would say the backlash feels a little embarrassing to be associated with it because it in no way reflects how research is done at the college,” the student wrote in a message to The Campus. “Students undergo very serious training so it’s shocking and upsetting that something like this happened but not a reflection of the vivarium research overall.”
Although none of these incidents occurred on Public Health Service-funded projects, according to Bunt and Parker's report to the NIH, the agency’s protocols require individuals to report any violations within institutions that receive funding from the federal government. Eligibility to conduct animal research requires research institutions to have Animal Welfare Assurance, necessitating the college to report any noncompliance issues that occur in the laboratory, according to Budkie.
According to the Public Health Service’s Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, failure to comply with federal policy can result in various actions, including the termination of PHS service and funding.
According to Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!’s website, the animal rights group’s goal is to expose the truth in order to end animal experimentation. The organization’s complaints have mostly targeted large research universities such as Johns Hopkins University, MIT and Harvard University. In many cases, SAEN complaints have led to the permanent cancellation of research projects; Budkie told The Campus that his group successfully shut down nine research projects across the U.S. in the past two and a half years.
Although Budkie says cancellation of projects is a reasonable response, he also believes that the researchers involved should be removed from the institution to prevent future issues. According to Budkie, Middlebury should follow suit by dismissing the employees responsible for the violations.
“The corrections they list are things they do internally so we cannot verify one way or another whether those actions were or were not taken,” Budkie said in an interview with The Campus. “We do not feel that those corrections are anything that will necessarily prevent these kinds of occurrences from happening again.”
The college did not address any individual researchers in its written statement on the subject, only describing the reported violations as resolved internally in the college. Bunt and Parker’s initial report did not call for the termination of any college employees or student research assistants.
The animal rights group’s complaint comes a little over a year after staffing issues in the vivarium halted some research projects and left classes involving animal research struggling to replace the hands-on experience. College employees who worked with or in the vivarium reported being overworked and underpaid, which led to their departure for other research institutions. As of Feb. 25, all four staff positions in the vivarium are filled.
Editor’s Note: Senior News Editor Maggie Bryan ’25 contributed reporting to this article.
Correction 3/7/2025: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated twice the last name of Clarissa Parker, chair of the college’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Those instances has been updated.
A prior version of this article incorrectly used the term "staff members" to refer to the faculty and students who are discussed in the Nov. 19, 2024 report to the NIH. The story has been updated to describe the people as individual researchers; vivarium staff were not the subject of SAEN's report.
