For Immediate Release:
August 26, 2022
Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382
Hercules, Calif. – Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna regarding federal documents that reveal serious animal welfare violations at the Hercules-based contract testing laboratory Pacific BioLabs.
Injecting animals with experimental compounds and rubbing substances into their raw, abraded skin is business as usual for Pacific BioLabs, but incompetence and a culture of disregard add to the animals’ suffering. According to a just-posted federal inspection report obtained by PETA, employees injected two rabbits with a chemical at full concentration—although the protocol required that it be diluted. Although the error was noticed, the veterinarian was not notified and the rabbits were left to suffer overnight. The following day, they had to be euthanized.
Pacific BioLabs has previously been cited for running afoul of animal welfare laws. Just last year, two guinea pigs who had been used in a “dermal sensitization” test were found to have deep wounds, measuring 2 inches by half an inch, in their flesh. PETA recently obtained photos of the animals’ condition via a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The rabbits, guinea pigs, and other animals in Pacific BioLabs’ facility feel pain and value their lives just as much as any of the company’s executives, and it would do well to modernize its operations by ending cruel and archaic animal tests and using only sophisticated, human-relevant research methods, such as those described in PETA scientists’ groundbreaking Research Modernization Deal.
For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
