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The ongoing animal research controversy surrounding the University of Michigan has intensified after yet another article linked to a disgraced researcher has been retracted due to fabricated or falsified data.
Stop Animal Exploitation Now! (SAEN), a national watchdog group that investigates animal abuse and illegal activities at research facilities, is calling on federal authorities to declare Chung Owyang guilty of research misconduct.
In early January, Gastroenterology retracted an article published in 2009 about “visceral pain responses in rats” after the University of Michigan raised concerns about falsified or fabricated data. It’s at least the ninth research article connected to Owyang that has been retracted in the past two years.
In a letter this week to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Serivces’s Office of Research Integrity (ORI), SAEN points out that nearly $1.4 million in federal funds were used on the fraudulent research.
“In other words, an article connected to roughly $1.4 million in annual funding given to two UM researchers, which subjected rats to intentionally inflicted pain, generated nothing more than potentially falsified data,” SAEN Executive Director Michael A. Budkie wrote in the letter. “In other words, animals suffered horribly and died for nothing more than potentially falsified/ fabricated data.”
Budkie argues that federal authorities have sufficient information to take action against Owyang, who stopped working at the university in January 2023.
“The Office of Research Integrity clearly has an overabundance of information,” Budkie writes. “Chung Owyang’s Research Misconduct is obvious. He is connected to nine retracted publications. What is ORI waiting for? Close this case!”
Metro Times couldn’t reach Owyang for comment.
In January, SAEN called for a separate investigation into unrelated research at the University of Michigan involving highly invasive experiments that induced seizures in mice. Another scientific journal retracted an article due to “unreliable” and duplicated data from partially federally funded research.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information retracted the April 2013 article late last year after citing concerns “raised regarding the scientific validity.” Some of the information was “improbable” and “unreliable,” the journal stated in its retraction.
The University of Michigan also came under fire recently for its handling of yet more animal research, this time for multiple violations, including the botched euthanasia of mice. SAEN called for an independent audit and the termination of the lab workers involved.
In another case, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited the university for seven violations of the Animal Welfare Act following inspections in March 2023 and May 2023. The violations ranged from a botched euthanasia on a rabbit to administering expired drugs to a calf.
In response to questions from Metro Times last month, U-M spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen said the university “is committed to fostering and upholding the highest ethical standards in the conduct of research and scholarship.”
“We take this responsibility very seriously and have numerous policies and controls in place to ensure animal welfare,” Broekhuizen continued.
She said the university’s accreditation body and the National Institute of Health’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare “reviewed these matters and found that the University took all necessary steps to correct and self-report these isolated incidents.”
SAEN argues that the incidents are far from isolated and represent serious, ongoing problems with the university’s animal research.
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