Group Calls for Greater Transparency in Company's Use of Animals After Primate Scalded to Death in Cage Washing Machine
For
Immediate Release:
April
30, 2012
Contact:
Kristin
Richards 202-483-7382
Plainsboro, N.J. — Dressed in monkey masks and holding signs that read, "Monkey Scalded to Death," in reference to the monkey at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) who died earlier this year when her cage—with her still inside it—was run through a burning-hot cage wash, PETA members will gather outside BMS's Plainsboro headquarters as shareholders arrive for the company's annual meeting on Tuesday. Inside the meeting, a PETA representative will speak in support of the group's shareholder resolution, which calls on BMS to annually disclose its efforts to ensure proper animal care both in-house and at contract laboratories as well as its plans to promote non-animal testing methods:
Date: Tuesday, May 1
Time: 9 a.m.
Place: Bristol-Myers Squibb, 777 Scudders Mill Rd. (near the intersection with College Road), Plainsboro
"Animals have suffered excruciatingly thanks to Bristol-Myers Squibb—from its own laboratories, where a monkey was scalded to death in her cage and a monkey was strangled to death when left unattended while tethered to a cage, to contract laboratories, where workers slammed primates against cages," says PETA Senior Director of Regulatory Testing Jessica Sandler. "Shareholders have a right to know what Bristol-Myers Squibb is doing to save the numerous animals it uses from suffering and to promote modern, humane non-animal research methods."
Laboratories contracted by BMS include Covance, where an investigator documented that workers struck primates and threw them against cages. Primates circled frantically in their cages, pulled out their hair, and chewed at their own flesh. One primate, trapped in his cage bars, was unable to reach food or water for days. Others suffered frostbite from inadequate weather protection.
The Food and Drug Administration has stated that 92 percent of drugs deemed safe when tested on animals fail in human clinical trials—and half of the remaining 8 percent are later relabeled or withdrawn because of unanticipated, severe adverse effects.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
