HILLSBORO - April 26th, 2002.  Elaine Close, of the Coalition to Abolish Animal Testing (CAAT), held a news briefing in front of the Oregon Regional Primate Center to release an independent audit of the National Institutes of Health, authored by Michael Budkie, a national research analyst with Cincinnati-based SAEN (Stop Animal Exploitation Now!). The Oregon National Primate Center is among dozens of research laboratories named in an independent audit of the National Institutes of Health that suggests there is a massive "waste" of tax money - including nearly $110 million at the ORPC alone - on useless, redundant studies.

The audit estimates the cost to taxpayers for the wasteful spending could be as much as $1 million an hour. The report details examples where the identical research - all funded by the NIH - is duplicated needlessly in scores of labs.

Mr. Budkie notes that the number of experiments on animals that are duplicated excessively is increasing. As of 2001, NIH-funded research on animals included about 30,000 separate projects at a cost of $8.5 billion. That's in increase, Mr. Budkie said, of more than 18 percent since 1997 and 37.3 percent since 1991.

One example in the audit cites 450 NIH grants studying cocaine use in rats, mice or macaque monkeys at a $130 million annual cost to taxpayers. Another study of neural information processing costs millions a year but is duplicated in nearly 200 identical projects.

One study Ms. Close cited during the press briefing involves studying the cardiac effects of cocaine in mice with the animal equivalent of AIDS. In order for results to be predictive, Close says human and rodent cardiac systems would need to be similar. They're not. An essential component of discovering a remedy for a medical problem is charting its path of "infection." Mice don't get AIDS. Mice don't use coke.

"A radical restructuring of the NIH grant approval system, and the Animal Care & Use Committee system are necessary prevent further waste of federal tax dollars," said Mr. Budkie, who called for Congress to commission a General Accounting Office audit of the NIH grant system, and correlate research contract data to examine the issue of duplication within the NIH. Copies of the NIH audit, entitled "The Animal Experimentation Scandal," will be released at the news conference. It was authored by Michael Budkie, a national research analyst with Cincinnati-based SAEN. The report is available upon request and at http://www.all-creatures.org/wlalw/report-anexp-pdf.html.