Animal Rights Groups Call for Tougher Penalties in Lab Deaths
A series of recent research monkey deaths have animal rights activists demanding tougher penalties for those who violate laws established to protect zoological creatures used for scientific research.
"The penalties have given them virtually no motivation whatsoever to cease violating the law," Michael Budkie, executive director of the Ohio-based organization Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN), told Scott Sonner of the Associated Press (AP) on Wednesday. "If they are literally killing animals through negligence, something is wrong with the system."
According to Sonner’s article, Department of Agriculture records show that there were 97 negligence-related animal deaths (not including mice and lab rats) in the United States over the past two years.
More than a third of those deaths occurred at a pair of Nevada-based facilities owned and operated by Charles River Laboratories, a global provider of research products and services for pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide.
Budkie’s group is now asking Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to investigate recent incidents, including those at the Charles River locations, which resulted in a combined $14,000 fine. The Animal Welfare Act, which was originally passed in 1966 and was later amended in both 1980 and 2008, currently calls for a fine of up to $10,000 per violation.
Stop Animal Exploitation Now was established in 1996 with the goal of ending animal abuse in research labs in the United States. In 2001, the organization filed the largest official complain in history, petitioning the Department of Agriculture to address abuses at UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Stanford University, Yale, Harvard, MIT, and other facilities. According to the group’s official website, "In our brief history SAEN has made a concrete difference for the animals, and we will continue to fight for their freedom until all the laboratory cages are empty."
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