USDA Research Facility on Lockdown

USDANearly two months after The New York Times published an investigative report revealing animal welfare violations at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Meat Animal Research Center in Nebraska, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the agency is halting new research at the facility until animal welfare-related conditions, training, and oversight are improved, Reuters reported this week (March 9).

In a draft report released this week, Reuters reported, the USDA maintained it had not observed any instances of “animal abuse, misuse, or mistreatment.” However, the agency—which is tasked with monitoring the welfare of animals used in some external federally funded research—noted that that the Meat Animal Research Center was not in compliance with policies set by the agency’s Agricultural Research Service. Elsewhere in the report, the independent panel that conducted the review of activities at the Nebraska facility noted that the Meat Animal Research Center’s Institutional Animal Care and...