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You Can Help!
U.S. Residents
Please help us hold both Covance and the USDA accountable for what primates endure at the Vienna, Virginia, and other laboratories owned and run by Covance.
First, write to Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns using our automatic e-mail form, and ask that he personally oversee the investigation into animal mistreatment at Covance. Read PETA's letter to Secretary Johanns, and remember to be polite and respectful. Also, implore him to immediately ensure that primates in laboratories receive the psychological enrichment and socialization that they are entitled to under the 1985 amendments to the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The USDA has never required labs to comply with specific standards for enrichment and socialization, so it is not surprising that they don't voluntarily do it! We are also asking Secretary Johanns to look into the USDA Eastern Regional Office's failure to properly oversee research laboratories. PETA called the USDA office in Raleigh, North Carolina, to file an urgent request on behalf of the irradiated monkeys at Covance who had developed open necrotic wounds on their stomachs and who were not seen by the USDA at Covance until five days after our complaint!
The Honorable Michael O. Johanns
Secretary of Agriculture
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building
12th Street and Jefferson Drive S.W., Rm. 200-A
Washington, DC 20250
agsec@usda.gov
202-720-3631
202-720-2166 (fax)
PETA is asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct a thorough investigation into Covance's compliance with "Good Laboratory Practices" (GLPs). Please review our letter to the FDA and lend your voice. Write to:
Lester M. Crawford, D.V.M.
Acting Commissioner
Food and Drug Administration
Parklawn Building, 5600 Fishers Ln.
Rm. 14-71
Rockville, MD 20857
commissioner@fda.gov
301-827-2410
301-443-3100 (fax)
PETA has written to the Senate Subcommittee on Research, Nutrition & General Legislation to ask that the subcommittee hold hearings on the USDA's failure to adequately oversee research facilities. If you live in the states represented by any of the following Senate subcommittee members, it is imperative that you write to them and ask for their support of such hearings:
Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)
Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.)
Blanche Lambert Lincoln (D-Ark.)
Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.)
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)
Pat Roberts (R-Kan.)
Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), Chairman
Debbie A. Stabenow (D-Mich.)
Please write using your own words, as many congressional offices tend to ignore form letters. Just make two main points:
- The USDA is soft on laboratories, giving meager fines even when the violations of the Animal Welfare Act are serious.
- The USDA has failed to set standards for primate enrichment and socialization. Thus, laboratories only need to show inspectors that they have a written program of primate enrichment and socialization. As crazy as that sounds, it is the law. Primates at Covance have only miserable scratched-up metal "mirrors" and pieces of PVC pipe for enrichment, and they are hardly ever pair-housed to ease their fear and suffering.
European Residents
In Europe, write to your MEP and urge him or her to support calls to outlaw the use of primates in research within the European Union. Although this investigation took place in the U.S., the investigation at a Covance laboratory in Germany exposed similar findings, and it is clear that monkeys are suffering throughout the whole of Europe right now!
Thank you!
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