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 the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for their
blatant disregard of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) when their negligence
killed a tree shrew. This behavior must NOT be tolerated and MUST be
punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Animal group seeks fine against Max Planck Florida for tree
shrew's death
From Jeff Ostrowski,
PalmBeachPost.com, February 7, 2019
An animal rights group is asking
the federal government to impose a $10,000 fine on Max Planck Florida after
a mistake during an experiment killed a tree shrew.
Max Planck Florida disclosed the accident to the U.S. Department of Health &
Human Services’ National Institutes of Health in September.
“This deserves the maximum fine because of the carelessness of the staff,”
said Stacey Ellison, a research analyst at Stop Animal Exploitation Now of
Milford, Ohio. Ellison this week wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture urging the harshest penalty under the Animal Welfare Act.
In its report on the incident last fall, the Jupiter-based nonprofit said a
tree shrew — a small, furry animal with a long tail and acute vision — died
during anesthesia. During an earlier experiment, a lab worker had switched
the oxygen and nitrous oxide lines on the ventilator the shrew was attached
to.
In an October letter, an NIH official said Max Planck Florida had adequately
addressed the mistake by retraining lab workers and by adding a check of gas
lines to the checklist scientists use during surgery.
In a statement, Max Planck Florida said it “implements the highest ethical
standards toward all animals in our care. We reported the matter in question
to the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, Division of Compliance
Oversight, who subsequently investigated and closed the case.”
A letter from a Max Planck Florida executive to an official at NIH described
the experiment as “terminal,” indicating the tree shrew would have been
euthanized had it not died from the surgical mistake.
Stop Animal Exploitation Now learned of the incident through a Freedom of
Information Act request. The letters it obtained didn’t disclose the type of
experiment being conducted. Max Planck Florida’s scientists specialize in
neuroscience.
Given the contentious nature of using animals as research subjects,
scientists and administrators at Scripps Florida and Max Planck Florida
discuss their use of mice, rats and other mammals only cautiously.
Florida and Palm Beach County lured Max Planck, the renowned German
institute, to Jupiter with $188 million in subsidies. The investment was
part of former Gov. Jeb Bush’s billion-dollar bet on biotech research.