OU in Trouble for Animal Treatment

The US Department of Agriculture has cited the University of Oklahoma for abusing baboons.

kerry grens
| 1 min read

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WIKIMEDIA, NICHOLAS BENSONThe University of Oklahoma (OU) is in hot water with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) after an inspection by the agency found baboons mistreated by staff members. According to Bloomberg Business, the USDA’s report mentioned baboons shivering after having been hosed down while others lived among filth.

“It’s pretty shocking to see that a university of that caliber has those kinds of practices in place,” Susana Della Maddalena with the Central Oklahoma Humane Society, told KFOR. “We hope the university does the right thing and does it quickly.”

The advocacy group Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!, for one, is asking the USDA to fine the university. An online petition, with more than 2,200 signatories, is asking for the lab violating animal rules at OU to be shut down.

OU got in trouble with the USDA in 2013 after the agency found that the college was euthanizing dogs via electrocution.

James Tomasek, vice president for research at OU’s health sciences center, told Bloomberg in an e-mail that the university is working to “demonstrate its ...

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  • kerry grens

    Kerry Grens

    Kerry served as The Scientist’s news director until 2021. Before joining The Scientist in 2013, she was a stringer for Reuters Health, the senior health and science reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia, and the health and science reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. Kerry got her start in journalism as a AAAS Mass Media fellow at KUNC in Colorado. She has a master’s in biological sciences from Stanford University and a biology degree from Loyola University Chicago.

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