Biomedical Research
| CINCINNATI––A Procter & Gamble probe of alleged animal abuse at Huntingdon Life Sciences in East Millstone, New Jersey, supports charges leveled on June 4 by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. | |
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P&G that day suspended testing work contracted out to Huntingdon, after three P&G public relations staffers attended a PETA press conference featuring a nine-minute covert video made by PETA undercover investigator Michelle Rokke, a three-year staffer who obtained employment with Huntingdon as a laboratory animal care technician. |
Photograph courtesy PETA. |
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| PETA
the same day introduced the Rokke video as evidence in support of a
37-page complaint to the USDA accusing Huntingdon of multiple Animal
Welfare Act violations.
“We’re citing inadequate veterinary care, improper training, and violation of AWA caging requirements,” said PETA director of investigations Mary Beth Sweetland. |
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| Reported Jeff Harrington of the Cincinnati Enquirer, “PETA’s video shows technicians dangling monkeys, yelling at them, throwing some of them into cages and threading tubes down their noses. At one point a monkey displays movement and a quickened heartbeat when a technician cuts into his chest. The technician remarks, ‘This guy could be out a little more,’ as he continues to slice.” PETA’s complaint alleged the technician was conducting a necropsy on a live monkey. | 
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Photograph courtesy PETA. |
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| Harrington
said PETA officials “repeatedly tried to deflect attention onto P&G
and away from Huntingdon, refusing to discuss other work Huntingdon did
for companies or to refer to the lab by name.” Most P&G
research and development is done in the company’s own laboratories
in Mason and Ross, Ohio, but some specialized work is contracted out.
P&G in a 1984 pact with Henry Spira of Animal Rights International agreed to phase out animal testing as promptly as alternatives can be developed, has cut the use of animals in non-drug consumer product testing by 90%, and has invested $55 million in developing non-animal testing methods, but remains under boycott by PETA, In Defense of Animals, and the Humane Society of the U.S., who demand that P&G declare a moratorium on all non-mandated animal testing. “The uncaring and unprofessional attitude of the lab technicians is not acceptable to us and is inconsistent with our principles,” P&G spokesperson Mindy Montgomery Patton said after the media screening. P&G associate director of corporate communications Don Tassone indicated that the USDA had already rebuffed P&G efforts to join in probing the alleged AWA violations. Both Tassone and Patton emphasized that P&G would proceed with an independent inquiry. “We’ve completed our investigation of Huntingdon Life Sciences and confirmed the behavior of several lab technicians involved with our studies was inappropriate and unprofessional,” Patton said on June 24. “As a result, we will not place any new studies at Huntingdon until we are convinced they can uphold our standards and the USDA completes its investigation. Our investigation found that technicians received proper training in animal care, but need additional ongoing training in the important responsibility they have to show respect and care for these animals at all times. Our on-site inspection confirmed that Huntingdon has appropriate policies and procedures, but needs additional management supervision in the lab to ensure P&G requirements are met and technicans conduct their work in a respectful and caring way.” Three Huntingdon employees were at fault, Patton told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “When we suspended our testing at Huntingdon on June 4,” she continued, “there were two studies underway for two new pharmaceutical drugs we’re testing to treat migraines and bone diseases. These studies are required by the Food and Drug Administration. We’ll complete them under close supervision by P&G personnel, who will be on site at the lab for the balance of this work to ensure our principles and procedures are followed, and the animals are treated with care and respect. If we didn’t complete these studies,” Patton concluded, “we’d be required to start over, using even more animals.” The study depicted on the PETA video involved 48 primates, all of whom were eventually killed and dissected. Huntingdon wins gag order Huntingdon initially called the PETA allegations “completely false” and part of an “anti-science agenda,” then on June 20 sued PETA and Rokke for alleged misrepresentation, breach of employment obligations, invasion of co-workers’ privacy, illegal wiretapping and electronic surveillance, and theft of “valuable trade secrets.” Preliminary motions were to be heard July 7. Huntingdon also won a gag order against PETA from U.S. District Judge Rebecca Smith. |
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| PETA president Ingrid Newkirk noted the similarity of the Huntingdon suit to one filed against the ABC News magazine show PrimeTime Live, after undercover reporters took jobs in Food Lion supermarkets to document the alleged sale of contaminated meat. Food Lion recently won a jury award of $5.5 million, but the case is under appeal. | 
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| Such
cases, Newkirk said, “are saying the media can’t investigate,
and social action groups can’t investigate. So that leaves the
police, and they need a court order.”
Huntingdon president Alan Staple stated in a June 27 release that he had been “informed by Dr. Ron DeHaven, acting deputy administrator of the Animal Care Division at the USDA, that they had no concerns about the health or well-being of the animals at this facility.” Further, Staple said, “Procter & Gamble’s decision to continue its important studies amounts to vindication.” “This was released by Huntingdon without our approval or knowledge,” said a handwritten P&G internal memo, signed by a senior executive and leaked to ANIMAL PEOPLE by a well-placed recipient. “We do not agree to this interpretation, and will not be ordering further studies until we are sure their management practices have changed. We are going to complete the ongoing studies and that is all.” Patton confirmed the gist of the message but did not comment on a suggestion by the same source that P&G might demand routine closed-circuit video surveillance of Huntingdon labs as a precondition of having any further work done there. PETA won previous rounds PETA has urged many companies to boycott Huntingdon, said the June 25 edition of the National Association for Biomedical Research newsletter. |
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After actress and PETA supporter Kim Basinger appealed in May on behalf of 36 beagles whose legs were to be broken to test an osteoporosis drug, the sponsor, the Yamanouchi firm of Japan, “stopped the study,” NABR News said. “Two other Huntingdon clients have suspended projects pending the outcome of their own and USDA investigations. |
| In
a similar case involving undercover video of a Huntingdon laboratory in
Great Britain, taken last year by a former employee working with the
British Union to Abolish Vivisection, the company quickly took necessary
corrective action. The film footage, which showed a technician shaking
and slapping a laboratory dog, was deservedly condemned in the strongest
terms by the British scientific community. Huntingdon terminated three
technicians, two of whom now face animal cruelty charges, two managers
were demoted, and a department head was replaced. Technician training
and competency assessment programs were upgraded.”
In Defense of Animals alleged in a February 10 complaint to the USDA and a simultaneous media release that “based on whistleblower revelations,” several beagles, a rabbit, and “an unknown number of rats” had “died of conditions that may indicate lack of proper monitoring and inadequate veterinary care” at a P&G drug testing lab in Norwich, New York. Tassone responded in a letter to IDA on February 11 that, “The assertions are completely false. In fact,” he wrote, “the USDA just completed its regular audit of this facility, and found no problems or compliance issues. Further, our testing at this site doesn’t even involve rabbits.” ANIMAL PEOPLE is unaware of further developments in that case. |
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