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Victory for PETA Europe:
Covance Drops Lawsuit; Video of Appalling Abuse of Monkeys to Be Shown Worldwide; Company's False Assurance of Good Welfare Practices Exposed
For 11 months, an investigator from PETA US worked as a technician inside the Vienna, Virginia, Covance laboratory, where she documented workers who were striking, choking, taunting and deliberately tormenting terrified monkeys. Covance sought an injunction and was able to get a court order temporarily preventing PETA Europe from showing the undercover footage from inside the Covance animal-testing facility in the United States. On 16 June, His Honour Judge Langan handed down judgement in the case for injunctive relief brought by Covance Laboratories against PETA Europe Ltd, dismissing the case and calling the arguments against granting an interim injunction "cumulative and, in my judgment, overwhelming". Furthermore, PETA Europe was awarded £145,000 in court costs. Covance Laboratories considered appealing this decision, but PETA Europe's case was so strong that the company withdrew its appeal request and dropped the entire lawsuit before it was brought in front of the Appeal Court judges. Covance will now be responsible for paying PETA Europe's additional legal costs.
The court was presented with the 28-minute video that resulted from the investigation, causing Judge Langan to comment on the "rough manner in which the animals [were] handled and the bleakness of the surroundings in which they are kept", matters which, he said, "cry out for explanation". The video also shows multiple violations of the US Animal Welfare Act, which PETA US has detailed in a 272-page complaint to the US Department of Agriculture. PETA US is also challenging Covance, which is suing PETA US and its investigator, Lisa Leitten, over the investigation in the US courts.
Among the violations that PETA US documented at a Covance facility in Vienna, Virginia, are the following:
- Animals with broken limbs deprived of veterinary care and euthanasia; animals found having seizures; animals with oozing open wounds on their legs; and animals who had suffered side effects from drugs that left them in conditions that required mercy killing
- Physical and psychological violence against primates by Covance workers, including sick monkeys jammed forcefully into plastic restraint tubes and terrified monkeys slammed to the floor, sprayed with water, intentionally tormented and thrown into their cages after having drugs forced into their stomachs
- Baby monkeys whose noses bled daily because of Covance's failure to use the proper-size tubes to thread up their noses, down their throats and into their stomachs to deliver test substances
- Chronic diarrhoea caused by stress
- Failure to provide the monkeys with socialization and enrichment, which is required by the AWA, leading to self-mutilation and repetitive behaviour such as circling, back-flipping and swaying – all of which have been identified by animal behaviourists as directly associated with loneliness and a lack of enrichment
In contrast to the abuse uncovered by PETA US, Covance has an animal welfare statement in which the company claims to treat animals with "care and respect". Contrasting Covance's claim with the reality exposed by the PETA US investigation, Judge Langan called it "a comparison between two different worlds". His Honour went on to say that to the extent that Covance "has fostered a misleading impression, PETA Europe is entitled to correct it publicly".
Judge Langan also stated that "in this case the balance comes down in favour of the truth being told. … As there should be 'truth in advertising', so there should be truth in publicity. The public should not be misled".
The court ruling means that the public and the media have the right to see how monkeys are being systematically abused in the world's largest testing laboratory. Videotape of animals being hit and choked at Covance is not proprietary information – it is criminal evidence that deserves to be seen, and we have won the right show it. The primates held in those tiny, barren steel cages need protection urgently.
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