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Office of Animal Care and Use
Phone: (919) 966-5569
Fax: (919) 966-8429
CB 7193
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7193
iacuc@med.unc.edu
Adequate veterinary care must be provided to all animals used in our research program. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Division of Laboratory Animal Medicine (DLAM) veterinary staff is responsible for the program of veterinary care for all animals covered under the University's Animal Welfare Assurance Statement. It is the responsibility of all Principal Investigators who use research animals to contact the DLAM veterinary staff to report any animal health problems.
Following the November 1998 site visit to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Association for the Accreditation and Assessment for Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC International) team cited the University for a lack of communication between Principal Investigators and the DLAM veterinary staff in a few instances. AAALAC determined that several researchers were not aware of or believed that their animals were ineligible for DLAM veterinary services, and research staff were medicating animals that had not been clinically examined or given the benefit of a diagnostic work-up by DLAM.
Research staff must seek veterinary care for sick or injured animals. Only the DLAM veterinary staff should provide veterinary care for animals used in research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This provision also extends to clinical abnormalities believed to be the result of experimental manipulations unless these conditions, and the appropriate therapeutic interventions, have been specifically defined and approved by the IACUC animal care and use protocol review process. Please bring this matter to the attention of your staff, and we look forward to your cooperation. The DLAM veterinary staff can be reached by calling 966-3111 or 966-2906.