ACTION ALERT:
Contact:
Dr. Elizabeth GoldentyerWatchdog: Animal deaths, including suffocation, at
Boston-area lab
From Marie Szaniszlo, BostonHerald.com, January 23, 2019
An
animal-welfare group has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, accusing a Bedford-based lab of “gross” abuse and negligence
resulting in the deaths of “multiple” animals, including at least one by
suffocation.
In a Jan. 17 letter to the USDA, Michael A. Budkie, executive director of
Stop Animal Exploitation Now, accused Toxikon Corp. of “serious violations
of the Animal Welfare Act” and urged the department to impose on the company
the maximum fine of $10,000 for each violation or each animal involved in
one.
“People should be concerned about this, whether they care about animals or
not, because this is supposed to be science,” Budkie told the Herald. “And
when science is done properly, it doesn’t involve animals being hurt or
killed because of negligence. A lab whose staff is this sloppy cannot be
trusted to produce meaningful information. Only a stiff penalty will compel
Toxikon to follow the law in the future.”
A Herald email to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was
answered by an auto-reply saying the service was closed “due to the lapse in
federal government funding” resulting from the shutdown, which entered its
33rd day Wednesday.
Within about 18 months, Toxikon received eight USDA citations — three of
which were labeled “critical” — for violating USDA regulations, Budkie said.
The citations involved the deaths of at least four animals, the escapes of
eight from enclosures and the failure to adequately monitor animals
recovering from surgery, he said.
Toxikon did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment. The company’s
website says it “places the utmost focus on the proper care and use of
research animals” and “meets all of the requirements of the United States
Department of Agriculture’s Animal Welfare Act and the National Institute of
Health’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare.”
USDA documents provided by SAEN, however, suggest otherwise. On Aug. 24,
2018, for example, an animal was anesthetized for a study procedure and died
from breathing complications because of an employee’s failure to correctly
configure the anesthetic machine after an initial pressure check.
A 2017 USDA inspection cited Toxikon for the death of a dog during surgery
because staff failed to recognize that the dog’s oxygen saturation was below
the required 90 to 95 percent, according to SAEN.
In October 2016, a rabbit was used in an approved protocol that included the
loss of 20 percent of his or her weight, the group said, but the rabbit was
allowed to lose 27 percent and was euthanized.
See also:
Return to Media Coverage