Brain aneurysm induced in dog prompts inquiry

CLEVELAND — The Department of Agriculture will send an inspector to a hospital where a neurosurgeon demonstrating a medical device to salespeople induced a brain aneurysm in a dog, which was later destroyed.

The Cleveland Clinic, known for its heart center and for treating high-profile patients such as royalty, said it had not authorized the procedure. The hospital reported itself to the USDA, which regulates animal testing.

USDA spokesman Darby Holladay would not comment on whether the clinic may have violated the Animal Welfare Act or what penalties it could face. "We're just trying to determine what occurred here," he said.

The Animal Welfare Act sets minimum standards of care for dogs and other mammals but does not prohibit their use in medical-device demonstrations, the USDA said.

A neurosurgeon caused the brain aneurysm in the anesthetized animal Wednesday at the clinic's Lerner Research Institute to demonstrate a medical device to a group of 20 to 25 salespeople. Some of the salespeople participated in a hands-on exercise, a clinic spokeswoman said.

The large, mixed-breed dog was destroyed afterward because of the damage caused by the aneurysm, the clinic said.

In a letter to the USDA, the clinic said the hospital's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee had approved the aneurysm being induced in the dog but not the use of the device on the animal.

The clinic said the committee also did not approve use of the dog in the sales demonstration. The letter was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

A spokeswoman said the clinic does not allow doctors to use animals for the sole purpose of sales training.

The clinic allows testing on dogs for medical education and research and used 340 canines for research in 2005, according to USDA documents.

The hospital would not identify the surgeon or disclose whether he had been suspended but said neither he nor the clinic had any financial interest in the device.

Shalin Gala, of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said the organization received a tip that salespeople from California-based Micrus Endovascular were training in the use of the MicroCoil System so they would be knowledgeable when making sales pitches.

The system allows for a less-invasive means than surgery to treat a brain aneurysm, a weak spot on a blood vessel that balloons out and fills with blood. The technique requires a doctor to thread coils through a catheter to the site of the aneurysm, trying to pack the aneurysm with enough coils to prevent blood flow.

Gala sent a letter to the president of Micrus Endovascular, asking him to stop the training program and establish a "formal policy prohibiting the use of animals for training purposes."

A Micrus official said he couldn't comment on the matter and added, "I would assume this is a Cleveland Clinic internal matter."

Hospital officials have begun an internal investigation.

F. Barbara Orlans, a faculty affiliate at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics, said the clinic and its animal-care committee are responsible for disciplining the doctor, who she said was "absolutely in error in terms of not knowing what his constraints are" at the institutional and federal levels.

Martin Stephens, vice president for animal research issues at the Humane Society of the United States, had a harsher assessment.

"Not following internal procedure on something as sensitive as this was reckless," he said. "This guy was incredibly naive about the system or just didn't care."

Stephens said using dogs for demonstrations "does not pass muster these days," even though dogs are still tagged as research subjects.

According to the Foundation for Biomedical Research, which supports humane animal research, dogs and cats together represent fewer than one-half of 1 percent of all lab animals needed in the United States.

The Ohio Revised Code allows for unclaimed impounded dogs to be sold for $3 to nonprofit organizations engaged in teaching or research concerning the prevention and treatment of diseases.

The dog used in Wednesday's demonstration was purchased from a licensed vendor.