Two Virginia universities anticipate tens of thousands of dollars are needed to display warnings and notices of federal guideline violations
Here is another example of why higher ed is so frustrating to work with when it comes to transparency measures. Here’s a bill directing facilities that use animals in research to post various reports online.
EXISTING law already requires USDA inspection reports and related documents to be posted online. This bill says they now also have to post any USDA warning, notice of alleged violation, settlement agreement, administrative complaint, decision or order, or any other enforcement record.
EXISTING law already says that the inspection reports can be made available by a link on the website, or, if there’s no website, by issuing a press release. This bill doesn’t change that.
The point is, they already have to post documents and make them available via a link or by issuing a press release. This bill simply adds to the pool of documents — and hopefully not by a lot because we don’t want testing facilities running afoul of USDA guidelines. Right? And yet….
A fiscal impact statement released yesterday says, “While most entities anticipate being able to absorb additional requirements,” here comes ODU and UVA saying this bill is going to cost $225,000 (ODU)/$82,600 (UVA) each year. ODU says it will have to hire *TWO* full-time employees. UVA says it will need one, but it will also need at least $1,800 for website and database upgrades AND an additional $800/year for legal review “to address risks to intellectual property.”
It’s not a good look to say you’ll need additional personnel — plus legal review — to post warnings, notices, complaints, decisions, etc. Are there going to be so many of these types of interactions that 40 to 80 hours per week/52 weeks each year must be devoted to it?
And, of course, the answer is “no.” Just looking at the USDA website’s public inspection tool, click on “Animal Welfare Enforcement Actions” and then filter with the word “Virginia.” There’s a “settlement agreement” (one of the phrases used in the bill) with Virginia Tech from 2024 and an “official warning” (another term in the bill) from EVMS in 2021.
These are the bare-boned determinations, and admittedly, the bill does contemplate also posting the supporting documents, but it doesn’t appear to be a deluge of documents. If it is a deluge, there would be bigger problems to deal with.
So let’s take a look at how higher ed is doing with the current law to post “inspection reports” and “any other relevant [USDA] incident reports and relevant documents generated from internal reviews.”
Here’s how Virginia Tech presents its inspections — a list of current and past inspections, plus their occasional response.
ODU has a pared down version of that.
VCU and UVA provide a link to their most recent inspections.
At the risk of oversimplifying things, Virginia Tech, which has a more comprehensive display of its inspection reports and which gives visitors directions on how it can look up information about the school on the USDA website, says it can absorb the cost of this legislation. VCU may have a less comprehensive display, but they can handle it, too. ODU and UVA? $307,600 between them to tell the public that it may not have — or hasn’t — complied with federal guidelines for the use of animals in research.1
Think about that.
VCOG doesn’t take a position on the ethics or efficacy of using animals in research. However, we do consistently take the position that when people or entities are regulated and/or licensed, the public should have access to information about how regulations are being implemented. On the one hand, are regulators fairly enforcing the regulations and licenses, and on the other side, which regulated people or entities are falling short?