The mangled bodies of victims purchased from Charles River have littered the bloody labs inside the University of Florida for decades before being unceremoniously incinerated. Remember Monkey 24A who was ripped from his home in the jungles of Guyana as a baby and sold by Charles River to UF in 1992. He spent the next 17 years entombed in Vivisector Raymond Joseph Bergeron’s man-made hell from which there was no escape. Meet one of his dealers and feel free to contact him to tell him how you feel…
James C. Foster, CEO
Charles River Laboratories
251 Ballardvale St.
Wilmington, MA 01887-1000
978-658-6000
978-658-7132 (fax)
Courtesy of PeTA
James C. Foster is CEO of the world’s largest breeder of animals for use in experiments and the second-largest importer of nonhuman primates into the U.S. A summary of Charles River Laboratories’ AWA violations reads like a criminal indictment: inadequate veterinary care; failure to provide pain relief to suffering animals; inadequate housing, causing a high incidence of foot injuries in dogs; failure to investigate non-animal alternatives to experiments involving severe suffering; and at least a dozen other violations in 2005 alone.
In 2005, the USDA cited Charles River Laboratories for 22 serious violations of the AWA. Criminal charges for institutional negligence and criminal cruelty to animals were filed against the company in 2004, but they were dropped because the cruelty statutes in the laboratory’s jurisdiction do not apply to laboratories.
One Charles River–owned animal-testing laboratory in the U.K. was forced to close down after undercover investigations revealed high mortality rates and abysmal living conditions for the animals held captive there. Monkeys were killed because of deformities or because they were underweight. Primates were denied socialization or any other form of stimulation or environmental enrichment, and they engaged in stereotypical behaviors (e.g., continuous rocking, twisting, self-mutilation, and wailing).
Experiments on great apes have been banned or severely restricted in other countries; the Netherlands, New Zealand, the U.K., Sweden, Germany, and Japan have determined that chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans are so similar to humans cognitively that using them in invasive experiments is unethical. That hasn’t stopped James Foster and Charles River Laboratories—they just keep experimenting in countries (such as the U.S.) that have lax laws.
Charles River Laboratories’ cruel treatment of animals is bad enough on its own, but such shoddy treatment of animals also affects the scientific validity of the company’s experiments. According to veterinarian Andrew Knight, “[The experiments] raise substantial scientific concerns. … Charles River Laboratories’ treatment of these animals has damaged them as experimental models. The scientific outcomes that resulted are likely to be even further removed from human outcomes than would be achieved by the use of healthy, non-stressed animals, as intended by the [Animal Welfare] Act. … Consequently, these experiments not only fail the humane and ethical standards required by the Animal Welfare Act, but also cannot be expected to provide scientifically reliable data.”
Write to Foster, and tell him that you don’t approve of his company’s cruelty to animals.
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