Animal experimenters in the US, beware: you may find yourselves facing criminal charges for simply doing your job. That鈥檚 what has happened to nine staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who could go to jail or pay heavy fines for carrying out decompression experiments on sheep for the US navy.
Some sheep died in the experiments, which aimed to find new ways to save divers from decompression sickness, otherwise known as 鈥渢he bends鈥�. Antivivisectionists at the in Madison and at discovered that Wisconsin has a law banning the killing of animals through decompression.
The AFA and PETA filed charges, and on 2 June circuit judge . She concluded that the researchers 鈥渋ntentionally or negligently violated Wisconsin law鈥�, and so should face criminal charges. Smith dismissed the university鈥檚 defence that the research project was exempt from the law.
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The case is the first in which animal researchers have faced criminal charges in the US since 1981. 鈥淚f animal rights groups continue to pursue the use of laws in ways they were not originally intended, I鈥檓 concerned that universities may be forced to expend additional resources to counteract these unwarranted legal attacks,鈥� says , president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research in Washington DC, which defends animal experiments.
鈥淚 recommend institutions doing biomedical research educate their in-house counsels about these animal rights strategies and be prepared.鈥�
