ALERT! RESEARCH LAB ANIMALS IN DIRE NEED OF RESCUE

RESCUER ALERT!! PLEASE SHARE!!! PLEASE HELP !!!!

ALL ANIMALS MUST BE SAVED/RESCUED!

Research lab admits to horrible and cruel abuse of their research animals. They shut their doors and are getting "RID" of all research animals!!!

Professional Laboratory and Research Services
1251 NC Highway 32 North
Corapeake, NC 27926-9749

To help with the rescue effort please contact:

LUCY ENNISS
Executive Assistant
Animal Welfare Institute
900 Pennsylvania Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20003
Tel: (202) 337-2332
Direct: (202) 446-2119
Fax: (202) 446-2131
Email lucy@awionline.org

www.awionline.org and www.compassionindex.org

THE HISTORY ...

*** Warning: this is upsetting ***

For nine months, an investigator worked undercover inside the filthy, deafeningly loud kennels of Professional Laboratory and Research Services, Inc. (PLRS).

Inconspicuously tucked away in rural North Carolina, PLRS takes money from huge pharmaceutical companies to test insecticides and other chemicals used in companion animal products. Bayer, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Schering-Plough (now Merck), Sergeant's, Wellmark, and Merial, the maker of Frontline flea and tick products, are some of the corporations that have paid PLRS to force-feed experimental compounds to dogs and cats and smear chemicals onto the animals' skin.

The investigator found that toxicity tests were just part of what the animals endured. Laboratory workers appeared to despise the animals in their care—they yelled and cursed at cowering dogs and cats, calling them "a******e," "m**********rs," and "bitch"; used pressure hoses to spray water—as well as bleach and other harsh chemicals—on them; and dragged dogs through the facility who were too frightened to walk.

Video evidence shows that terrified cats were pulled from cages by the scruff of the neck while workers screamed in their faces and that a cat was viciously slammed into the metal door of a cage. One worker grabbed a cat and pushed him against a chain-link fence. When the cat fearfully clutched at the fencing with his claws, the worker jerked him off the fencing, saying she hoped that the cat's nails had been ripped out.

Dogs at PLRS may spend years in cages, either to be used repeatedly in tests or to be kept infested with worms for some future study. They are just like the dogs we share our homes with, but they live day in, day out without exercise or enrichment, companionship, a scratch behind the ears, or even a kind word from the only people they ever see.

Many dogs had raw, oozing sores from being forced to live constantly on wet concrete, often in pools of their own urine and waste. Workers didn't even move the dogs when they pressure-sprayed the runs, frightening the animals; soaking them with water, bleach, and soap; and exposing already painful sores to harsh, irritating chemicals.

PLRS didn't bother to keep a veterinarian on staff. Instead, it chose to bring its primary veterinarian in for only one hour most weeks. Animals endured bloody feces, worm infestations, oozing sores, abscessed teeth, hematomas, and pus- and blood-filled infections without receiving adequate veterinary examinations and treatment. Sometimes, the conditions were ineffectively handled by workers who had no credentials or veterinary training.

After a supervisor gave one dog an anesthetic that was past its expiration date (and likely administered too little of it), the supervisor pulled out one of the animal's teeth with a pair of pliers. The dog trembled and twitched in apparent pain, and the supervisor continued with the procedure despite the dog's obvious reaction. Workers repeatedly cut into one dog's tender, blood-filled ear, draining blood and pus but never treating the underlying cause of the dog's suffering and apparently causing the ear to become infected.

Dogs were intentionally subjected to worm infestations for tests, but conditions were so sloppy that dogs who weren't supposed to be part of the study also became infested and were then left untreated. In one test commissioned by a corporation whose products are sold in grocery and drug stores nationwide, a chemical was applied to the necks of 57 cats. The cats immediately suffered seizures, foamed at the mouth, lost vision, and bled from their noses. Despite this, the substance was put on the cats a second time the very same day.

To cut costs, PLRS killed nearly 100 cats, rabbits, and dogs. The company had decided that some of these animals' six daily cups of food were too expensive.

**If you email us back, please include the organization you are with. **

THANKS

LUCY ENNISS
Executive Assistant
Animal Welfare Institute
900 Pennsylvania Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20003
Tel: (202) 337-2332 Fax: (202) 446-2131
Direct: (202) 446-2119
www.awionline.org
www.compassionindex.org

The Animal Welfare Institute has been working to alleviate the suffering inflicted on animals by humans since 1951. Please join us in our work to protect animals – visit our website to find out more and to sign up for AWI eAlerts: www.awionline.org.

Link to video...warning GRAPHIC. Click here.