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Video Expose Confirms Regulations on Animal Use by Laboratory Flaunted
Pune—This week, on the heels of an announcement by the Union health minister, Dr C P Thakur, that he would ask Prime Minister Vajpayee to exempt laboratories housing animals from certain animal welfare regulations and inspections, PETA Chief Functionary and CPCSEA nominee, Anuradha Sawhney, has exposed wrongdoing at the National Institute of Virology, one of the pioneer Institutes of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and documented atrocious conditions. Veterinarians from the Bombay Veterinary College conducted a follow-up inspection to Ms. Sawhney’s visit.
Click on images to enlarge.
Ms. Sawhney led a team from the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) consisting of Dharmesh Solanki and other officials for surprise inspections on 8 May 2002 and the veterinarians inspected the facility on 11 May 2002.
As a result of an inspection in July of 2001 by expert consultant of CPCSEA, Dr. Syed Qadri, NIV had already been directed to suspend its experiments on animals due to unacceptable conditions discovered in the facility’s animal house. Now, ten months after the warning and suspension, PETA video footage and photographs reveal that the animal house remains inhumane, filthy, and hardly a place where good science could be conducted. Further, conversations with Dr. Raut of NIV, officer in charge of the animal house, revealed that experiments may still be conducted despite the ban. The facility houses 1725 animals, including rhesus monkeys, rabbits, guinea pigs, sheep, goat, geese, hens, hamsters, mice and other animals species.
Animal welfare violations found at the site by Ms. Sawhney and the team include: no suitable ventilation system in oven-hot rooms (with windows shut while animals baked in the heat); cages for rabbits so small they could not move; food dumped on and mixed with bedding contaminated with the animals’ own excrement; no water provided to many animals, including geese for their tank, with filthy water for others; inadequate food quality or type for the species; overcrowding of small animals; no drainage or other sanitation system in guinea pig housing area, with animals unable to escape their own faeces and urine; lack of veterinary care for animals suffering from illness or injury; and sheep with painfully overgrown hooves causing them difficulty in walking. The inspectors were kept waiting for an hour before being reluctantly granted entry, and it was evident to them that a rush to clean-up, while inadequate, had taken place while they waited. Those in charge at the facility attempted to mislead the inspectors and to hide rooms full of animals from officials.
The 37 monkeys kept in small, barren cages exhibit symptoms of zoochosis, a debilitating psychological illness caused from severe stress and confinement (circling frantically in their cages, displaying excessive aggression, etc.). Inspection team member and Associate Professor, Department of Medicine from the Bombay Veterinary College, Dr. Gaekwad, found that several monkeys are deformed, one is paralysed, others are missing fingers and toes - likely as a result of their attempts to escape or accidents by workers. Three of the monkeys are unable to extend their hind legs as a result of chronic arthritis or atrophy from lack of exercise. Many of the monkeys have apparently untreated skin diseases and patches of hair missing; several are unable to close their lower lips and have no teeth. One monkey is suffering from a coagulation disorder and was dripping blood from the vagina and mouth. One monkey suffers from severe anaemia. Another monkey ran loose among the cages. The water provided to monkeys was fouled with insect larvae.
Dr. K.S. Manja, Addl. Director, Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) explains, “Animals are not exactly like us physiologically, so extrapolating test results from a mouse to a man is unreliable at the best of times. When animals are kept in this way, surrounded by filth and stress, untreated, overheated, and without adequate food or water, we are not talking about science but slop and sadism.”
A show cause order has been issued on behalf of the CPCSEA to NIV asking why the animal house should not be closed down.
Photos and video footage are available upon request.
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