Watchdog: Animal deaths, including suffocation, at Boston-area lab
Media Coverage About SAEN Stop Animal Exploitation Now

ACTION ALERT:

Contact:

Dr. Elizabeth Goldentyer
Director, USDA, Eastern Region
(919) 855-7100
[email protected]
[email protected] 

SAMPLE MESSAGE:

Please LEVY a MAXIMUM FINE against Toxikon for their blatant disregard of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) when their negligence killed and/or injured multiple animals including a dog and rabbits. This behavior must NOT be tolerated and MUST be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

 

Watchdog: 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.

 

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