McLaughlin director says mice treated properly

George Carlson, senior scientist and director of the McLaughlin Research Institute, said Friday that mice are treated properly at the
research facility.

By Tribune Staff

He was reacting to a videotape made by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that shows mistreatment of research animals.

"We make sure there’s humane treatment of animals," he said, adding that mice are the only animals used.

In November, the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International inspected McLaughlin and
reaccredited the facility, praising its staff and its structure.

McLaughlin has a nine-member advisory group, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, that reviews protocols and inspects
living conditions for its thousands of mice. The committee includes lay people who have the right to visit the laboratory unannounced to
inspect conditions there, Carlson said.

"Any experiment that’s done at the institute gets reviewed," he said. "There are specific guidelines that are followed."

Julie Gilchrist, animal resource supervisor, oversees care of the mice.

Carlson noted that, because the institute gets most of its research dollars through the National Institutes of Health, it follows NIH
guidelines protecting lab animals from unnecessary pain and stress.

He said mice are treated humanely at the facility; placing them under the Animal Welfare Act "wouldn’t change anything."

"It would just add another bureaucracy," he said.

Virtually all medical research is based on use of animals, Carlson said. He disputes the argument by animal activists that research can be
done using computer modeling or cell cultures.

Studying complex afflictions such as Alzheimer’s disease requires using mice, he said. "Many diseases are like that. You have the whole
organism that’s affected."

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