One researcher is concerned after a court-ordered release of public records revealed details about a controversial experiment at Angelo State University.
The study, designed to replicate the experiences of children in the foster care system, involved the extermination of dozens of baby mice.
In the experiment, baby mice were separated from their biological mothers at various intervals, then tested for anxiety-like behaviors.
Afterward, they were euthanized, and their brains examined.
The study concluded that mice placed in a single foster home showed more resilience than those moved between multiple homes.
Stephen Farghali is a researcher with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group.
After looking over the newly released public records, he raised concerns about the study’s ethical approach.
“In addition to needlessly killing animals, it’s an insult to the people they’re claiming to help,” Farghali said. “It’s a disservice to students, who could be learning real, creative ways to answer these questions, instead of pretending to do science and eroding an ethical base in the process.”
Farghali first made a public records request concerning the study in August 2022, the first domino to fall in what would be a lengthy litigation battle.
His request was denied, with the university claiming that Angelo State’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, or IACUC, was a medical committee and therefore exempt from public disclosure.
The Texas Attorney General’s office backed the university, prompting the Physicians Committee to file a lawsuit.
On July 11, a Tom Green County District Court Judge ruled that the records must be released.
The court found that Angelo State’s IACUC did not meet the legal definition of a medical committee, which applies only to medical schools or health science centers.
Farghali, after reviewing the released records, noted the absence of key materials, including videos of the experiments that the committee had requested.
This is despite multiple public manuscripts stating the experiments were recorded.
“The thing that stood out to me most, was the complete lack of an alternative search.” Farghali said. “When a researcher wants to use animals in an experiment, they fill out this application and they submit it to the IACUC.”
According to Farghali, this application specifically states the term alternative must be used when searching for possible substitutes for animal use.
“First, they didn’t include the word alternative, so they just blatantly ignored that in each protocol." he said.
“And the keywords they used were problematic as well. They used things like mice, anxiety, and things like that. That’s effectively the opposite of an alternative search,” Farghali added. “They are biasing their results toward the animal that they’re supposed to be finding an alternative to.”
Farghali also pointed out other troubling details in the records, such as missing meeting minutes from the university’s IACUC, which should have documented any review or challenge to the researchers’ methods.
“We see this all the time,” Farghali said. “Researchers are in a lab. They’ve got rats, they’ve got mice. They’re convenient, cheap, easy and they can feel like real scientists if they are dissecting something at the end of the day.
He labeled the study "pseudoscience," arguing that trying to replicate the complexity of human experiences, such as how children react to multiple foster placements, is impossible in a laboratory setting.
“When you see something, written in the final manuscript, after doing this ridiculous experiment on mice, you see a conclusion that says — paraphrasing here — ‘our results demonstrate that early life experiences have significant impacts on children.’” Farghali said.
“How more insulting can we be to folks who work in foster care and to kids in foster care?"
Angelo State University and its IACUC declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.