IDA Files Lawsuit to Identify Researchers Named in Federal Complaint Against UCSF
Group Seeks Full Disclosure of Protocols Cited for Violations of Animal Welfare Act

San Francisco - In Defense of Animals (IDA) has filed a suit in the Superior Court of the State of California against the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) for violating the California Public Records Act (CPRA) by failing to provide IDA with copies of research protocols - including investigator names - that were cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for multiple violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) last year.

Last fall, IDA submitted a CPRA request to UCSF seeking copies of all protocols cited in the formal USDA legal proceeding filed on August 31, 2004 and amended on November 4, 2004 charging UCSF with a total of 75 AWA violations. IDA specifically requested that the names of investigators responsible for the AWA violations, which the USDA characterized as "grave," be disclosed. To date, UCSF has failed to provide the documents to IDA.

"Once again, we must turn to the courts to shine public light on the animal cruelty that occurs every day behind UCSF's laboratory doors," said Elliot M. Katz, DVM, president of IDA. "The individuals conducting publicly funded research at this public university must be held publicly accountable for egregiously mistreating animals and violating federal law."

Among the charges in the USDA complaint against UCSF are: failing to provide lambs and monkeys with post-operative pain relief; leaving monkeys and lambs unmonitored after surgery causing animal suffering and death; forcing marmoset monkeys to breed continually and give birth while still nursing, resulting in high infant mortality and severe weight loss in mother monkeys; failing to properly monitor the weights of monkeys deprived of water in highly invasive brain experiments; and subjecting at least one monkey to multiple injections of a brain-destroying chemical through the carotid artery.

The suit is the third CPRA legal action filed by IDA against the University of California. In 1992, the court forced U.C. Berkeley to release unredacted copies of animal research protocols, including researcher name. In 2001, the court ruled that UCSF must disclose full copies of research protocols, but allowed the university to withhold researcher names. But the court also ruled that "there may be a basis for reconsidering whether any individual researcher's right to privacy is outweighed by Petitioner's right to know that researcher's identity." Among the circumstances tipping the balance was evidence that a researcher had violated the Animal Welfare Act.

For more information on UCSF animal research see www.vivisectioninfo.org/ucsf/index.html.