From: Alka Chandna ([email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 9:06 PM

Dear Friends,

I hope all of you are well. Forgive me for sending this group email, and please also forgive my failure to keep in touch. I�ve been buried over the past four months working on PETA�s cruelty complaint for an investigation that just broke earlier today. PETA�s investigator worked for 11 months as a primate technician at Covance Laboratories, a drug-testing facility in Vienna, VA.

The investigation is the top story on www.peta.org , and you can read more at www.CovanceCruelty.com . My job was to go through the investigator�s log notes and video documentation, flagging violations of the Animal Welfare Act. My supervisor had asked me to highlight the portions of the investigator�s notes that were violations and it didn�t take long to realize that I could just highlight the whole damned thing.

A lot of very compelling footage didn�t make the very short final cut, like the numerous video clips of monkeys in cages who, in their wholly tragic and yet so astonishing attempts to help their cage mates, would reach their arms out of their cages and tug at the shirts of the vivisectors who were violently handling the caged monkey�s friend (I think there are instances of this in the longer online video).

The awareness, the lack of awareness, the powerlessness � it�s all so tragic and awful. But, we were able to give voice to the animals� plight today with a press conference in DC (good media: CNN, FOX, and all the network television stations), and there�ll be a second press conference tomorrow in Princeton, NJ (where Covance is based).

 While the animals� lives at Covance are truly Hell (it�s like one long, torturous, unending, horribly barbaric horror film where the victims are killed very slowly, suffering miserably and enduring hateful abuse until they finally die), living this nightmare for 4 months was its own hell (the guilt of eating an apple, when having a quarter of an apple is one of the few joys in these monkeys� lives; the guilt of being able to wrap myself in blankets after having my wisdom teeth pulled, when these monkeys are thrown back into their cold, barren concrete and metal cages after having horribly invasive surgeries conducted on them; the guilt of being loved when these animals are so alone). I blind copied everyone on this list, but everyone receiving this note is an activist; I want you to know that it means the world to me that you care, that you advocate for a better world, that you raise your voices and your fists to create positive change � you are the silver lining, the balance, the inspiration, the co-conspirator, the reason for hope.

Thank you.

Be well,

Alka Chandna

Research Associate
Research & Investigations Department
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Phone: 757.962.8210 | Cell: 757.943.7439
www.CovanceCruelty.com
www.ColumbiaCruelty.com
www.StopAnimalTests.com 

"What I saw at Columbia still gives me nightmares. I saw baboons whose left eyes had been cut out - so that major blood vessels could be clamped off through the empty eye sockets to induce strokes - who had collapsed in their cages, unable even to lift their heads, eat, or drink after this horrendous surgery. They were left in these dire conditions without any painkillers, as the experimental protocol demanded and denied the merciful release of euthanasia."

- Dr. Catherine Dell'Orto, former post-doctoral veterinarian fellow at Columbia University who blew the whistle on cruelty in the university's labs

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