PROCTER & GAMBLE UPS THE ANTE
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:
CINCINNATI––Embarrassed in
June when PETA disclosed allegedly abusive
conditions at Huntingdon Life Sciences, an
animal testing subcontractor, Procter &
Gamble at its October 14 annual shareholders
meeting announced that the American
College of Laboratory Animal Medicine is to
develop a sensitivity training program for all
animal handlers and researchers at either
P&G laboratories or subcontracting labs;
announced it has committed $900,000 to the
San Diego Supercomputer Center Biology
Network of Modeling Efforts toward the cost
of developing a mathematical model of the
human heart, which could accurately predict
biological responses to new drug compounds,
plus another $100,000 for related research to
replace animal-based toxicological testing;
and disclosed that company expenditures to
replace animal testing since 1984 now total
$64 million, including $9.5 million during
fiscal 1997. The last two P&G contracts
with Huntingdon were concluded in August.
The supercomputer project is “in its
very early days,” acknowledged P&G associate
director of human and environmental
safety Katherine Stitzel, DVM, “but we
can’t see any other way you can get to complete
elimination of animal use. It can’t ever
happen if we don’t start.”
P&G in 1984 made a corporate
commitment to develop, use, and promote
alternatives to animal research at request of
Animal Rights International founder Henry
Spira, and since then has spent approximately
three times as much in the effort as any
other corporation or institution.
PETA, In Defense of Animals,
and the Humane Society of the U.S. greeted
the 1984 commitment with an ongoing boycott
of P&G products, apparently trying to
force an acknowledgement they could use to
claim the deal with Spira as their own victory.
Since the boycott began, however,
P&G sales have more than tripled.
PETA filed an Animal Welfare Act
complaint against Huntingdon based on evidence
supplied by PETA investigator Michele
Rokke, who worked undercover at the lab as
an animal care technician. Huntingdon countersued
Rokke, accusing her of fraud by misrepresentation
and stealing trade secrets.
Huntingdon won a preliminary injunction in
that case which has kept Rokke and PETA
from disclosing to the public any materials
Rokke obtained on company premises.
Rokke resurfaced on September 26
as key witness in 18 cruelty charges brought
against Howard Baker, owner of the Village
Veterinary Hospital in East Brunswick, New
Jersey. Rokke said in affidavits filed on June
16 that she witnessed and videotaped Baker
violently abusing animals while working in
his clinic from April through December 1996
