Lab monkeys treated inhumanely - Vienna, VA

Friday, May 21, 2004

County: Fairfax

Disposition: USDA Citation
Case Images: 1 files available

Person of Interest: Covance Laboratories, Inc

Case Updates: 1 update(s) available

The USDA has fined drug-testing company Covance, which has plans to build in Chandler, after an investigation prompted by an animal rights group's allegations of animal abuse at the company's Vienna, Va., facility.

Covance says the citations were minor and that the offending employee, accused of mishandling lab monkeys, no longer works for the company. Covance was fined $8,720 for 16 citations, three of which involved lab monkeys. The others concerned administrative issues and equipment. "None of the issues cited by the USDA were pervasive or endemic," said Wendel Barr, a senior vice president with Covance. "While we don't agree with all of those citations, the company has agreed to (the fine) and we've already taken corrective action."

The investigation was conducted last year but the settlement was just announced. Inspectors spent weeks at the facility and also viewed a videotape taken by a member of the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The PETA member had gone undercover and worked at the Covance facility for 11 months. The video taken inside the Covance lab is on PETA's Web site.
PETA spokeswoman Mary Beth Sweetland said the group is unhappy with the fine, calling it too small. "I think that the thousands of people who watch this video would assume that Covance would be fined a thousand times the amount that they were fined by the USDA," Sweetland said.
"The USDA is always aiding laboratories and making life difficult for those who take the time and the care to expose violations," she added.

The animal-related citations involved a technician yelling at a primate and using more force than necessary to put a primate back into its cage. "The three citations . . . were a total of three seconds out of 80 hours of tape," Covance spokeswoman Camilla Strongin said. The third citation was prompted by the video showing the technician putting his hand behind a primate's head and apparently tapping or hitting, depending on who is describing the action. "The view was that the contact probably was not warranted," Barr said. Another citation had to do with a technician incorrectly measuring an animal for a cage. Barr described Covance's training for its technicians as "exhaustive" and "robust." "We do believe the issues cited were very minor, and I think the fine is probably an indication of the view of severity," Barr said.

Covance has purchased 38 acres on Price Road north of Queen Creek Road in Chandler but has yet to ask the city for rezoning. If it builds a facility in Chandler, the USDA will conduct similar unannounced yearly inspections. Regular audits also are done by the FDA and Covance's customers, which are drug companies, Barr said. USDA spokesman Darby Holladay said the agency takes all complaints seriously and follow through to "seek an outcome that makes sure that licensees or registrants are in compliance with the Animal Welfare Act."

PETA's Sweetland said that's not enough. "Just like minimal standards of care in the Animal Welfare Act, the USDA also metes out very minimal fines to offenders."

Case Updates

PETA's investigator was hired by Covance as a technician and worked inside the company's primate testing lab in Vienna, Virginia, from April 26, 2004, to March 11, 2005. The investigator's video documentation inside the lab started on July 30, 2004, and what she documented-the terror, sadness, sickness, injuries, suffering, and deaths of monkeys from the wild and Covance's own breeding facilities-will leave even the staunchest supporter of animal testing ashamed and all good people clamoring for justice. At Covance, the primate staff complained repeatedly about a young monkey with a broken arm being left untreated in his cage for four days. The head vet at Covance, didn't know what to do about the bone break, and so he waited for a junior veterinarian to return from her time off. The junior vet immediately ordered the animal euthanized as the break was too severe to repair. She discovered and disclosed that the head veterinarian had given the baby monkey a drug that had little more effect than that of an aspirin for his unimaginable pain. Other Documented Horrors for Animals at Covance include: Striking and choking "uncooperative" monkeys, screaming curses at frightened, sick monkeys, slamming monkeys into their cages after they've had dosing tubes rammed down their throats, hosing down cages with monkeys still inside, soaking the animals, a loose monkey terrorized by a technician who slams cages into walls to scare the animal out of hiding, monkeys with chronic rectal prolapses-painful protrusions of the intestines through the rectum-resulting from constant stress and diarrhea, monkeys who died horribly in tests for a drug company-the veterinarian was forbidden to examine them or provide any treatment, including euthanasia, small monkeys dosed with large tubes forced up their nostrils and down into their stomachs, causing choking, gagging, and daily bloody noses, monkey self-mutilation resulting from Covance's failure to provide psychological enrichment and socialization, injuries left untreated until they became necrotic, nonstop blaring rock music. Investigation Timeline: Friday, May 21, 2004 "'J' said that one of the monkeys moved while he was administering the TB test and that he stuck the needle all the way through the monkey's eyeball. 'J' said that he was told by 'JM,' one of the primate techs, that this was OK and that it 'happens all the time.'" Wednesday, June 9, 2004 "'A,' an employee I met in a training class, necropsied the rabbit. After injecting the rabbit with a euthanasia drug while she was in a full-body restraint, 'A' cut away the rabbit's hair and sliced open her abdomen. 'A' dumped out all of the rabbit's organs and inspected each for any abnormalities. After inspecting the rabbit's organs and cutting out the uterus full of live babies, she cut the rabbit's jugular vein and said that she was supposed to have done that immediately after the euthanasia injection to make sure the rabbit was dead but that she 'forgot.'" Sunday, August 22, 2004 "One of the monkeys was the poor girl on 'T's' study with the necrotic wound on her leg. 'K' took her out of the cage and asked me to gently take hold of her leg and stretch it out. The sight of the wound was horrifying. It was at least 3 inches long, dark gray in color, and several tendons and one vein were exposed. The wound was approximately three-quarters of a centimeter deep. The vet directive called for us to give the monkey a shot of Baytril and treat the wound with antibiotic ointment. Although the monkey was in obvious pain and was suffering greatly, the directive did not call for any type of pain reliever." Friday, August 27, 2004 "While catching one male in particular, 'J' punched the front of the cage as the monkey clung to it, making contact with the animals' fingers and toes, and then forcefully wrestled with him inside the cage, swearing at him the whole time. 'J' violently threw the animals back into their cages. How awful for this monkey to be treated this way by someone who has worked at Covance so many years (and should know better than to act like this). . . . The monkey I have previously observed biting his own arms while being restrained on the board again engaged in self-mutilation-his arms were cut open and bleeding (especially his right arm). I talked with him and tried to stroke his back and give him the tip of my glove to chew on, but he went from thrashing around to biting himself to closing his eyes as if he were ignoring everything. The fear in his face was evident, and it was appalling to watch how upset this monkey was and know that no one would do anything about it. When I informed 'T,' the head technician for the study, she simply acknowledged the fact that this poor monkey was biting himself." Tuesday, September 14, 2004 "The worst thing about the euthanasia procedure was that it was done inside the animal room and all of the monkeys sat in their cages, wide-eyed, watching their friends go limp on the table and be dumped in black plastic bags." Saturday, October 2, 2004 "When I entered the room where my study is located, the room had just been cleaned. All of the animals had wet hair and I saw a couple of them even shivering. The cages were drenched with water-the bottom metal grating the monkeys sit on, the walls and even their perches ... I can't imagine what it is like to be in a cage while someone is spraying a hose at you. I have seen cages being cleaned, and the poor monkeys cling to the back walls of the cages in fear. . . . One of the monkeys got loose and 'J' and 'Q' terrorized the entire room in an attempt to catch the animal-tilting cages, screaming, banging the cages into the walls etc. ... 'Q' swung one of the monkeys as high as he could and shook and jerked him around, all the while making threatening noises and faces. 'J' was so nasty-slamming the monkeys back into their cages and yelling at them while they were being dosed." Wednesday, October 27, 2004 "Today I helped 'J' bleed the irradiated rhesus. One of the females was very sick. She sat motionless, hunched over in the back corner of her cage. She looked very pale to me, her incision site was inflamed and swollen and she did not vocalize at all while we were in the room." Wednesday, December 15, 2004 "'K' was catching animals while I was dosing, and when he caught the first Group 1 female monkey in this study, she struggled with him and started screaming. 'K' proceeded to forcefully slam her face down to the floor (where he got a tighter grip on her), and when he brought this female to me to be dosed, I noticed that she had a large red, swollen bruise across her brow." Monday, December 20, 2004 "I observed 'M,' one of the senior necropsy techs, using a power saw (attached to the ceiling by a cord) to decapitate a monkey after the animal had been killed. I cringed as 'M' sawed the animal's head off, and he agreed that it was pretty gruesome, but referring to the monkey's head, callously stated, 'It's served its purpose.' He went on to say that it is unusual for the animals to be beheaded but that this study requires the dissection of several parts that are most easily removed when the head has been cut off. In particular, he removed this monkey's larynx, esophagus, and pituitary gland." Friday, January 7, 2005 "Yesterday I noted that two monkeys in quarantine had cuts on their tails that were so severe that I was able to see bone. When I pressed on one of them, pus came out. Today I assisted 'H' in amputating these animals' tails. The animals were anesthetized, then 'H' performed what she called the "flower technique," wherein she held the monkeys' tails up, sliced the skin into pieces (which I suppose make up the "flower's" petals) that were peeled back alongside the bone, amputated approximately 2 inches of bone, removed infected tissue, and sewed the skin up around the bone. 'H' complained that the surgery was not sterile and said that she could perform much better in her job if she were provided with the proper tools and equipment (the surgeries were not performed on the stainless steel table top, but rather on a sheet of cardboard). At one point 'H' talked to one of the monkeys and indicated that the animal was able to feel the surgery. She said that if the monkey continued to respond that she would do something." Monday, January 10, 2005 "'H' and 'P' were in the room looking at a sick monkey. Group 4 female monkey #51 was hypoactive, hunched, and very thin, and her entire body-including the inside of her mouth-was covered in raised, blister-looking bumps. 'P' described them as "bloody welts." Friday, January 14, 2005 "The sickest animal in this study, male monkey #99, continues to lose his hair, is thin, and has dry and flaking skin. He has dilated pupils, hunched posture, and is hypoactive after dosing. I have previously brought his condition to 'H's' attention, and she has told me that the client will not allow her to treat him." Tuesday, January 25, 2005 "Group 4 female monkey #54 was the worst. Sadly, the study director, toxicologist, and clients all stood in front of her cage, staring at her as she lay on her side on the cold metal floor of her cage, her breath shallow and slow. Many of the monkeys had drool pouring out of their mouths as if they had lost control of all bodily functions. As I walked around the room and checked on the sick monkeys, several of them struggled to lift their heads an inch off of the cage floor as they stared at me with agony and pain in their eyes."

Source: Covance News - 2004 Update posted on Mar 31, 2006 - 9:55PM

References

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