For
five months, a BUAV operative called 'Marcus' worked undercover
as an animal technician at Covance, Münster, in Germany.
The
Covance laboratory tests almost exclusively on non-human
primates; it houses up to 2,000 rhesus macaques, cynomolgus
macaques and common marmosets for toxicity testing.
This
Covance facility is likely to be one of the largest users
of non-human primates for vivisection in the whole of
Europe.
Working
mainly with the cynomolgus macaques, Marcus witnessed
the daily suffering of monkeys (including heavily pregnant
females) subjected to the abhorrent routine of pharmaceutical
toxicity testing.
It
was a gruelling challenge, submerged in a world where
the animals were treated with callous indifference, tormented
by the staff, separated from each other, isolated in barren
cages, regularly and forcibly pumped full of drugs and
eventually killed.
Most
of the macaques were confined in small, metal, single-isolation
cages for anything from a few months up to three years.
As
well as being totally isolated from each other in small
spaces, most of the cages were completely barren. The
only attempt at 'environmental enrichment' for some of
these highly intelligent, complex animals was a tiny block
of wood and the occasional plastic bone.
Even
pregnant females were kept in these appalling conditions,
forced to give birth on the cold metal bars of the cage
floor.
Unsurprisingly,
these barren, unstimulating conditions led to serious
stereotypical behaviour in some monkeys, including repetitive
rocking, circling and back flipping, classic symptoms
of mental disturbance. They were literally driven mad
with boredom and deprivation.
As
well as enduring appalling conditions, the monkeys at
Covance were also subjected to a daily routine of distressing
procedures during which they were roughly handled, tightly
restrained, force-fed and injected with substances in
toxicity trials and immobilised in plastic stocks known
as 'primate chairs'.
Certain
staff were physically as well as verbally aggressive to
the animals, creating a highly threatening atmosphere.
Caught on the BUAV undercover camera, staff can be seen
entertaining themselves by mocking and taunting the monkeys,
even during testing.
Monkeys were forced to 'dance' to disco music on the radio,
even rocking their heads in time to a song whilst another
member of staff is seen trying to insert a tube down the
throat for oral dosing.
The
BUAV believes its undercover video footage provides clear
evidence that Covance is breaking both German national
animal welfare law and European Union legislation governing
the housing and treatment of laboratory animals. The BUAV
is calling for legal action to be taken against the company.
World
renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, who had a private
viewing of the BUAV video, commented, "I've spent
my life in the wild, I know what it's like for a social
living creature with the intelligence of a monkey. To
see a monkey alone in a cage like that, with nothing to
do so that they go completely crazed with boredom and
sadness probably, it's deeply, deeply disturbing."
"To
use monkeys in experiments like this is absolutely not
acceptable," Goodall added. "The video that
I saw showing how these helpless animals were treated,
the brutality, the callousness, the joking and laughing,
the total lack of dignity; they were being treated like
inanimate things, and it deeply shocked me."
"It
made me extremely angry and something has to be done about
it; we have to stop it now," she said.
Wendy
Higgins, Campaigns Director for the BUAV, said: "The
conditions the BUAV uncovered at Covance were utterly
shameful. We were shocked to discover how these poor animals
had to endure a life of verbal and physical abuse as well
as painful and distressing experiments and a barren existence
in woefully inadequate conditions - it must be like a
life of hell for these intelligent, highly sentient animals."
"The
BUAV is renewing its call for a total ban on all experiments
on monkeys in the EU," Higgins said. "Deliberately
subjecting these beautiful animals to painful and lethal
experiments is not only morally unjustifiable, it is also
scientifically inexcusable."
"We
all want to see safe drugs and cures to human diseases,
but there are too many significant species differences
to ever make vivisection a reliable methodology, and there
are non-animal tests that could offer more relevant results,"
she said.
Emily
McIvor, EU Political Co-ordinator for the BUAV, remarked,
"As the EU progresses its review of EU Directive
86/609 governing animal experiments, and considers in
particular calls for an EU ban on all primate experiments,
our evidence will be vital in showing EU politicians not
only the grim reality of primate toxicity testing but
also how easy it is for current legislation to be flouted
even by multinational companies like Covance."
© 2003 Animal News Center, Inc.
