Animal Rights Group Upset With Local Facility
WLNS TV 6
11 Feb 2011

An animal rights group takes aim at a Lansing facility that makes the country's only federally approved anthrax vaccine. The group called "stop animal exploitation now" wants Emergent Biosolutions to stop testing on guinea pigs. Stop animal exploitation now claims Emergent Biosolution's Lansing lab uses more animals in tests without painkillers than any other lab in the nation. The company's own numbers show in 2009 that 7,600 guinea pigs were used in experiments without tranquilizers.

Michael Budkie, stop animal exploitation now: "We have a right to know, and in fact a responsibility to know, what is being to these animals, the pain that is inflicted on them, how they're living, how they're dying."

But Emergent Biosolutions spokesman Mark Alley says the tests are necessary for an effective anthrax vaccine.

Mark Alley, Emergent Biosolutions, Inc.: "We're doing everything we can, not only to make sure our product is of the highest quality, but that the tests we do can certainly be as humane as they can possibly be to the animals."

Stop animal exploitation believes that's not enough. Emergent Biosolutions is reviewing its animal testing.

Michael Budkie: "Hundreds of animals are enduring things that if you allowed them to happen to a companion animal, you would be prosecuted for animal cruelty."

Mark Alley: "We certainly are always utilizing resources, not only on how to become more efficient, but certainly how we can use less animals in our testing."

The report that Emergent Biosolutions submitted to the federal government is from 2009. It's the last year from which numbers were available.

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