PETA Hits Boston Scientific With Proposal to Come Clean on Animal Use

Company Needs Plan to Address Abysmal Animal Welfare Record at Contract Laboratories

For Immediate Release:
May 8, 2014

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Six weeks after Boston Scientific rejected PETA’s offer to work with the company to address horrific animal abuses committed by the laboratories it hires to conduct experiments, the animal protection organization has taken its concerns to company shareholders.

At Boston Scientific’s annualstockholder meeting on Tuesday, May 6, PETA presented a resolution calling on the company to use more non-animal testing methods and improve living conditions for animals being used in the company’s experiments. The meeting was held at One Boston Scientific Place in Natick.

Boston Scientific uses a large number of animals in deadly experiments, some of which are performed at contract laboratories that have abysmal animal welfare records and histories of violating animal-protection laws.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) records show that in one of the laboratories used by Boston Scientific, Michigan-based MPI Research, a number of animals, including three monkeys, a dog, and a pig,suffered broken bones from being handled roughly. MPI personnel also failed to properly search for alternatives to painful surgical procedures, as required by law.

Another contractor used by Boston Scientific, Massachusetts-based Charles River Laboratories, also has had major problems at its facilities. USDA records show that 32 monkeys baked to death following a heating system malfunction. Another monkey was scalded to death when her cage was run through a high-temperature cage washer while she was still inside. And incompetent staff left gauze inside the body of a dog during surgery. That animal suffered for more than three weeks before he was eventually killed.

“Shareholders have a right to know that their company is choosing to do business with laboratories that break animals’ bones, scald and bake them to death, and leave animals to suffer and die from untreated illness and infections,” says Jessica Sandler, director of PETA’s Regulatory Testing Division. “Boston Scientific needs to go beyond platitudes about animal welfare and take concrete action to address these important scientific and ethical concerns.”

For more information, please visit PETA.org.