Policy for Reporting Animal Welfare Concerns

Reviewed and Adopted on February 8, 2024 by IACUC

1. The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (Guide, page 24) states that a program for reporting animal welfare concerns should be available.
2. UMES IACUC guaranteed the Concerns raised by users or spectators of the facility are held in confidence by the IACUC Chair and Institutional Official.
3. We ensure anonymity and multiple points of contact for reporting concerns.
   • Anonymity refers to a process by which there are no identifying values collected that can link the information provided to the individual submitting the concern.
   • Multiple points of contact include senior management, the IO (Dr. Rondall Allen, reallen@umes.edu), IACUC Chair (Dr. Victor Hsia, vhsia@umes.edu), Lab Animal Technician (Caroline Maahs, jcmaahs@umes.edu), and AV (Dr. Kimberly Braxton, kabraxton@umes.edu).
   • The names are subjected to administrative changes.
4. The Institutional Official will guarantee that raising such concerns will not be a source of reprisal or retaliation toward the person raising such concerns by any other campus official.
5. The Institutional Official will guarantee that raising such concerns will not be a source of reprisal or retaliation toward the person raising such concerns by any other campus official.
6. To maintain anonymity and protection against reprisal to the individual(s) in good faith, reports an animal welfare concern shall be addressed to UMES Office of Sponsored Program and Research (research@umes.edu ) followed by relaying the information to personnel in 3b.