Feds Cite San Antonio Lab After Baboons Escape and Attack Worker

PETA Complaint Prompts Feds to Take Action Against Animal Laboratory That Has History of Animal Escapes

For Immediate Release:
June 25, 2010

Contact:
Ian Smith 757-622-7382

San Antonio -- In response to a complaint filed by PETA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has cited San Antonio-based Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) for two violations of the Animal Welfare Act. PETA's complaint followed a May 10 incident in which two baboons escaped from laboratory cages and attacked a caretaker, who was rushed to the hospital after he was repeatedly bitten and scratched. A second worker who came to the man's aid also received cuts and bruises. SFBR was cited for failure to handle animals in a manner that does not cause trauma or physical harm as well as failure to provide the animals with adequate and safe housing. The USDA inspectors ordered SFBR to upgrade the animals' housing conditions.

"At SFBR, highly intelligent and social animals are relegated to barren steel cages--where they are infected with disease and later cut open," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "No wonder they're desperate to escape."

Animal housing violations are nothing new at SFBR. In 2009, and again in February 2010, the USDA cited SFBR for failure to house animals in structurally sound enclosures to prevent them from escaping and injuring themselves and others. In one incident, a monkey escaped from a cage and got outside into the freezing cold, where he suffered from hypothermia and later had to be euthanized.

For information about animal experimentation and its cruelty and irrelevance to human health, please visit PETA's Web site StopAnimalTests.com.