Here’s a roundup of this week’s biggest news stories related to animal research—all the recent media coverage you need to know right now to be the most effective activist for animals in labs.
Kill-Traps Kill Animals: Thanks for the New “Research”, USDA
Rise for Animals, 6/5/2024
With our friends at Animal Partisan, we’re exposing newly uncovered, gruesome evidence of the federal government using our tax dollars to kill animals with devices that were designed and already proven to — you guessed it! — kill animals. 📰 Full Story →
US Breeder Envigo Pleads Guilty For Mistreating Beagles, Gets $22 Million Fine
Sarah N. Lynch, 6/3/2024
“Research animal breeder Envigo pleaded guilty in Virginia on Monday to federal animal welfare and environmental crimes, resolving a two-year U.S. Justice Department probe into its mistreatment of thousands of beagles.”
“Indiana-based Envigo agreed to pay $22 million in fines — $11 million of which represented the largest-ever Justice Department fine in animal welfare case — plus $13.6 million more to support animal welfare and environmental projects, cover law enforcement expenses and improve its own facilities.”
“Envigo, acquired by Inotiv [] in 2021, is one of the leading suppliers of animals for medical research in the United States. Its clients include major pharmaceutical companies, universities and the federal government.”
“It pleaded guilty . . . to one misdemeanor count of conspiring to violate the Animal Welfare Act and one felony count of conspiring to violate the Clean Water Act, after it refused to fix its wastewater treatment equipment and allowed excess animal feces to be discharged into a nearby creek.” 📰 Full Story →
Woman is Back on Dialysis After Doctors Remove Transplanted Pig Kidney
Lauren Neergaard, 5/31/2024
“A woman who received a pig kidney transplant is back on dialysis because surgeons had to remove the gradually failing organ after just 47 days.”
“The first patient to receive a pig kidney transplant . . . died in early May, nearly two months after his transplant.” 📰 Full Story →
Animal Rights Protester Dumps Glitter on Harvard President Alan Garber Before Alumni Day Speech
Emma H. Haidar & Cam E. Kettles, 6/1/2024
“The protester . . . poured gold glitter over Garber as she shouted: ‘For the baby monkeys, for the animals in the labs, Harvard, shut down the baby monkey labs now.’”
“The glitter attack against Garber was part of PETA’s yearslong campaign against experiments involving monkeys in a Harvard Medical School laboratory run by professor Margaret S. Livingstone.” 📰 Full Story →
The Real Dolphin Tale: They’re Smart, Sometimes Vicious and Highly Sexed
Barbara S. Moffet, 6/1/2024
“The longest-running wild dolphin research study paints a fuller picture of the marine mammals; they’re not ‘humans in wet suits.’”
“Among the program’s key findings: The individual dolphins here live in specific ‘neighborhoods’ generation after generation, forming a mosaic of adjacent communities along Florida’s west coast. Many males forge buddy pairs for protection and stay together for life. And hereto- and same-sex interactions are used to establish and maintain social bonds over dolphin life spans that can stretch well past the age of 60.”
“ . . . they are highly intelligent, they have sensory systems very different from those of humans and a complex and unique means of communication . . . each dolphin has its own whistle, used for life like a name.”
“Nurseries made up of mothers and their youngest calves will swim together for a while, and independent juveniles join up with each other to practice skills needed later in life.” 📰 Full Story →
Pentagon’s ‘Barbaric’ Drug Testing on Beagles Raises Hackles of Pet-Loving Politicians
Charles Creitz, 6/3/2024
“Pet lovers in Congress are outraged over a new discovery that the Pentagon is reportedly funding painful experimental drug tests on beagles in pursuit of FDA approval of a pharmaceutical . . . the Department of Defense has spent nearly $1 million on the testing, which runs through July and involves force-feeding dogs large doses of an experimental drug to treat Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”
Representative Nancy Mace said “taxpayer dollars should fund innovation, not animal abuse” and “added that she and other lawmakers previously successfully pressured then-NIAID chief Anthony Fauci to stop similar painful drug tests on puppies and solicited an admission that alternative means of testing would be possible.” 📰 Full Story →
Two UVA Employees Suspended After Animal Abuse Reports
Gabby Womack, 6/4/2024
“A pair of University of Virginia employees are now suspended for not following protocol. Animal abuse reports say they violated these regulations repeatedly.”
“A group called Stop Animal Exploitation now . . . is calling for those staff members to be permanently banned from animal research.”
“The Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare reported that these workers did not take care of or give proper pain relief to mice.” 📰 Full Story →
Big Money Talks in Fight to Save Endangered Monkeys from Extinction
Animal Welfare Institute, 6/5/2024
“This month, a committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is scheduled to determine whether long-tailed macaques (LTMs) should continue to be classified as ‘endangered’ on its Red List of Threatened Species, a decision that could either reinforce hard-won protections or ease restrictions for the lucrative primate trade.”
“ . . . the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR), an industry-funded, pro-animal-research lobbying group, formally petitioned the IUCN to strip LTMs of their ‘endangered’ designation . . . arguing that the IUCN (a global authority on conservation issues) ‘did not reach objective scientific conclusions’ when it designated the primates as endangered….”
“Now, a new scientific study – the first to compare population estimates across multiple countries and regions – has found that LTM populations in the wild are indeed in steep decline . . . ‘Our current estimate . . . reflects a continuous decline representing an alarming 80% reduction over approximately 25 years,’ the authors wrote. ‘The severity of this decline is further emphasized by the nature of the model, which overestimates the population … making the true decline possibly greater.’” 📰 Full Story →
🔎 Read our expert insights or take action now to help protect the endangered macaque monkeys who are being exploited by the research industry.
Virginia Legislators Express Concern Over Medical School’s Treatment of Baboons
Joe Dodson, 6/5/2024
“A group of three state legislators sent leadership at Eastern Virginia Medical School a letter expressing concerns over the treatment of pregnant olive baboons used for experiments.”
“The letter comes after [PETA] filed a complaint with the city of Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Ratehi, calling for a criminal probe . . . The complaint focused on six mother baboons who carried a combined total of 25 pregnancies and underwent a combined 17 cesarean sections between 2024 and 2023.”
“The school killed five of the six baboons cited in PETA’s complaint, while the sixth, Alissa, died after her second cesarean section.” 📰 Full Story →
Underwater Porcupines: Made-to-Order, -Vivisect, -Destroy
Rise for Animals, 6/3/2024
Sea urchins appear to be the latest, in vogue victims of the animal research industry, which is seeking to render their large-scale exploitation both practical and profitable by “set[ting] the stage for urchins to rival mice, flies as model organisms”. 📰 Full Story →
Report Shows Inhumane Treatment of Lab Animals at Meharry Medical College
Nikki McGee, 6/5/2024
“An animal welfare group is sounding the alarm about alleged inhumane treatment of lab mice at Meharry Medical College, including one report that claims a mouse’s neck was broken while it was still alive.”
“On Dec. 20, 2023, Meharry reported lab mice were kept alive past the point of the ‘humane endpoint,’ with mice attempting to chew off large tumors. The second report was on Jan. 8, 2024, when lab personnel alleged used ‘cervical dislocation’ when the animal was ‘still alive and resisting.’” 📰 Full Story