Lab Investigated by PETA Bites the Dust

First, Professional Laboratory Research Services shut its doors just days after PETA released the findings of our disturbing undercover investigation there. Now, Covance’s horrendous Vienna, Va., laboratory, which PETA investigated five years ago, is closing up shop.

During PETA’s 11-month investigation at Covance, our investigator documented that workers struck, choked, and screamed obscenities at frightened and “uncooperative” monkeys. Monkeys suffered from rectal prolapses as a result of constant stress and diarrhea, and baby monkeys’ noses bled daily because workers shoved hard tubes up their nostrils to pump experimental chemicals and drugs into their stomachs. As a result of PETA’s investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited and fined Covance for serious violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

PETA has actually been battling this laboratory for nearly two decades. I remember participating in a protest outside the facility back when Covance was known as Hazleton Research Labs, a name made famous by the book The Hot Zone, which was about the Ebola outbreak among monkeys at the now-defunct Hazleton laboratory just a few miles away in Reston, Va.

In addition to closing the hellhole in Vienna, Covance has also scrapped plans to build a massive facility in Prince William County, Va., meaning that thousands of animals will be spared years of loneliness, misery, and pain. Pop the champagne corks, folks! And let’s hope that this trend involving the shuttering of animal laboratories continues into 2011.

Written by Alisa Mullins