THE APES OF WRATH

AS HLS PRIMATE ABUSE EXPOSED...AGAIN

A few weeks after seven people from SHAC were sentenced from 4 to11 years in prison for “Conspiracy to Blackmail” after running a campaign to close down animal testing laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences. A video and report has been released that highlights why these people were campaigning against HLS. This is the seventh time in 12 years HLS have been exposed by undercover investigations.

The video and report by Animal Defenders International (not connected to SHAC) follows monkeys in small rusted cages in Vietnam on a 30 hour journey to Europe. The monkeys could not stand up in the cages and suffered illnesses after the long journey; high temperature and weight loss, cuts on their heads and faces, flaking skin and bruising.

On arrival at HLS an undercover worker in the labs saw shocking routine cruelty and injuries caused by poor quality housing and rough handling. Monkeys were routinely scraped and cut, one monkey lost its toes, another cut his hand open. One female monkey cut her arm and the vet stapled shut the wound, but when the monkey was returned to its cage it pulled out the staples; she was then re-caught and had the wound glued shut. The undercover worker said of one monkey, “the chains holding a cage door shut had sharp edges and one pierced the cheek of a female monkey, leaving her unable to eat; as a result she was force-fed twice a day.”

The procedures on the animals are themselves inherently cruel. Monkeys are forced to ingest substances being tested by having a tube thrust down their throats into their stomachs and the substance pumped in. This caused vomiting, diarrhoea, nosebleeds, skin disorders, excessive salivating and the immediate death of one monkey following dosing.

In other experiments monkeys are restrained by being strapped into special chairs, one member of staff was bitten and subsequently grabbed the monkey’s head and twisted it violently. The stress caused monkeys to suffer rectal prolapses and they had to be replaced in the study. In an inhalation study, three monkeys died and another three collapsed but were revived, autopsies showed the monkeys had blackened lungs.

Of course all this is done “humanely” and is licensed by the Home Office. So of course HLS can’t be doing anything wrong and if you say they are, then hey, you’re a dangerous extremist.

Report and video at: www.shac.net/HLS/exposed/2008/

* The jury in the re-trial of animal rights activist Mel Broughton retired this week to consider its verdict. He is accused of conspiracy to commit arson and possession of articles with intent to destroy property, relating to attacks on Oxford University property in 2006. Oxford University is later this year opening an animal testing laboratory. The main evidence is low copy DNA from a matchstick used in a fuse of a bomb that did not ignite. The use of low copy DNA based on tiny pieces of DNA was described as “potentially misleading” by Dr Jamieson, a forensics expert for the defence. Also significant is that Thames Valley Police have a personal vendetta against Mel after being caught on tape saying they will be “waging a dirty war” him and “to persecute him”. (SchNEWS 590).