Laboratories
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1994:
The American Association for the
Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care
put the animal care program at the Davis cam-
pus of the University of California on proba-
tion for six months in mid-April, stating that
the lack of a centralized system for enforcing
care standards has led to uneven and some-
times inadequate care, including cages that are
too small and dirty, and rat infestations of
holding facilities.
The New York University Medical
Center Institute of Environmental Health in
March suspended primate experiments by
researcher Ronald Wood, pending allegations
of animal abuse relayed to the USDA and
National Institutes of Health by In Defense of
Animals, which said it had received informa-
tion about abusive holding conditions and inad-
equate veterinary care from internal whistle-
blowers, some of whom were subsequently
fired. Woods, a longtime target of protest
over his addiction experiments, received
$483,000 from the National Institutes of Health
in 1993 with which to hook monkeys on crack
cocaine and other drugs.
German laboratories kill about 7.5
million animals a year, mostly in teaching
exercises. German health minister Horst
Seehofer recently pledged to reduce the num-
bers by promoting the use of “virtual reality”
computerized dissection programs.
Imutran Ltd., of Cambridge,
England, partially funded by the Swiss-based
Sandoz drug empire, announced March 29 that
it had successfully produced a litter of pigs
whose genetic makeup is altered so that their
organs can be transplanted into people without
risk of rejection. “We now have a herd of over
40,” a spokesperson said. “When they mature,
their progeny will form the third generation,
and if the science is right, it is then that they
could be considered for clinical trials,” about
two or three years from now.
