Wednesday, September 8, 2004
By Rene Romo
Journal Southern Bureau
LAS CRUCES— Twelfth Judicial District Attorney Scot Key on Tuesday filed three animal cruelty charges against a laboratory animal supplier and two of its officials, alleging negligent care for three chimpanzees housed in a Holloman Air Force Base facility.
Two of the chimps died in late 2002, and a third, who had suffered a "grave wound," recovered despite being left overnight under the watch of security guards, according to the criminal complaint filed Tuesday morning in state District Court in Alamogordo.
Eric Kleiman, research director for a California-based group called In Defense of Animals that is opposed to the use of animals in research, said the case may be the first in which animal-cruelty charges have been filed against "an entire lab."
Kleiman's group provided Key's office with some of the information that prompted the investigation.
Named as defendants in the criminal complaint were Charles River Laboratories Inc., headquartered in Wilmington, Mass.; the company's president and chief executive officer, James C. Foster; and Dr. Rick Lee, the chief veterinarian at the Alamogordo Primate Facility the firm manages at Holloman Air Force Base.
Charles River received a 10-year, $42 million contract from the National Institutes of Health in the spring of 2001 to manage the Alamogordo Primate Facility, previously run by The Coulston Foundation. The Coulston Foundation turned over 288 of its chimps, housed at the Primate Facility, to the NIH in May 2000 as part of a settlement of a U.S. Department of Agriculture case involving animal-welfare law violations.
Lee could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and Charles River spokesmen also did not respond to messages seeking comment Tuesday.
The criminal complaint alleges that on Sept. 16, 2002, Charles River employees failed to provide needed veterinary care to a 16-year-old chimpanzee named Ashley, though they knew the chimp had suffered a serious injury to her genitalia. Left overnight under the watch of security guards, Ashley died.
Another 16-year-old chimp named Rex, who failed to wake up after he was anesthetized, died around Dec. 30, 2002, after Charles River personnel left him overnight under the watch of security guards, according to the complaint. Before leaving Rex, Charles River personnel had to remove vomit from the unconscious chimp's mouth numerous times.
A third chimp, 26-year-old female Topsy, recovered though she also was left overnight with security guards around June 26, 2003, after suffering from a grave injury, the complaint says.
The misdemeanor animal cruelty charges each carry maximum penalties of 364 days in prison and $1,000 fines, Key said.
Kleiman said the district attorney's involvement was needed because the USDA does not have jurisdiction over the Alamogordo Primate Facility, since it is a government-owned chimpanzee holding facility.
In addition, Key said, the agency responsible for providing regulatory oversight, the NIH, has not done so.
"They (NIH) have obviously failed, because any oversight that NIH has over Charles River is merely on paper, and in practice they've done little other than do several minor inspections," Key said.
The state's animal cruelty statute ordinarily does not apply to federally licensed research facilities, Key noted, except when the facility's employees knowingly operate outside of federal guidelines covering animal welfare.
Posted with permission from the Albuquerque Publishing Company.
............
