USDA Inspection Reveals Financial Ruin
at Coulston Foundation

Alamogordo, NM - April 24, 2002
Contacts: Eric Kleiman, 717-939-3231; Lisa Jennings, 505-286-1546

Lab Cannot Afford Adequate Staff, Drugs, Equipment,Toys, Fruit; Animal Protection Groups Say Chimpanzees in "Imminent Danger," Assail USDA Alamogordo, NM (April 24, 2002)

A USDA inspection conducted last month reveals that the financial situation at The Coulston Foundation is so grim that the lives of all chimpanzees and monkeys at the lab are in grave and imminent danger, In Defense of Animals (IDA) and Animal Protection of New Mexico (APNM) announced today.

The March 13th inspection again cited Coulston for inadequate veterinary care - the 12th such citation in the last four years, and the 3rd in the last four months. The agency found that the lab still had only two veterinarians; did not have basic drugs on hand for emergency veterinary care, despite staff requests; had only ten caretakers for 248 chimpanzees; was still housing 14 chimpanzees in illegal single-caging; had enrichment staff cleaning cages; is only providing fruit every other week; and "can no longer purchase" toys. A copy of the inspection is available at http://www.vivisectioninfo.org/Coulston/tcf_insp_030602.pdf.

In addition, whistleblowers have informed IDA that a blood analyzer used for basic care as well as testing was recently repossessed because the lab failed to make payments.

"How much more dire must conditions be before the USDA does something other than meekly document Coulston's continuing violations?" asked IDA Research Director Eric Kleiman. "Coulston can't even afford toys and fruit, or make payments on a blood analyzer, or stock basic emergency drugs. Last January the lab didn't even have a working gas anesthesia machine. Yet the USDA still refuses to take any action."

Kleiman noted that Coulston has a history of chimpanzees dying from easily transmittable diseases such as meningitis and shigella, and said that just one such outbreak under the grim financial and staffing conditions cited by the USDA could kill untold numbers of chimpanzees at the lab.

According to IDA and APNM, Coulston's dire financial situation is irreversible in light of the unprecedented sanctions the lab is currently facing from the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the fourth set of formal USDA charges filed last July. The FDA has stated that it will reject all studies conducted at Coulston since December 1999, resulting in further erosion of the lab's already-depleted private client base.

Last June, the National Institutes of Health - which had provided 63 per cent of Coulston's income in 2000 - suspended all funding to the lab. Six months later, in December 2001, First National Bank of Alamogordo filed a still-pending foreclosure lawsuit against Coulston because of over $1.1 million in outstanding loans.

"The USDA's failure to act on our repeated calls to take over this abysmal lab and permanently retire the chimpanzees there makes a mockery of law enforcement," concluded APNM Executive Director Lisa Jennings. "It also places the lives of 248 chimpanzees and 63 monkeys in grave and imminent danger."