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Also See Statement of Marshal Smith, USDA Whistleblower USDA Inspector Files Whistleblower Complaint with OSC Breaking the Law: Animal Care in U.S. Labs The Reporting of Animal Experimentation in the U.S.: Errors, Lies, and Contradictions Letter to the House Committee on Agriculture Concerning USDA's Failure to Enforce Their Regulations House Committee on Agriculture - Member Contact Information Letter to the Senate Committee on Agriculture Concerning USDA's Failure to Enforce Their Regulations Senate Committee on Agriculture - Members Contact Information |
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Reports Statement of Dr. Isis Johnson-Brown, USDA Whistleblower Former United States Department of Agriculture Animal Care Inspector
for Oregon, Whistleblower While working for the United States Department of Agriculture as the
inspector in Oregon for the Federal Animal Welfare Act, I was dedicated
to providing the animals the protections, minimal as they are, that are
stipulated by law. This is no easy task. As Oregon’s only inspector, I
was responsible for the oversight of over 120 facilities throughout the
state. I barely had time to visit each facility as required, which for
some facilities was no more than once every three years. If that wasn’t
enough, I soon found out that my own supervisors were working against me
at every turn. The research institutions I visited, including the Oregon Primate
Center, were not happy to see me coming once they realized that I was
going to hold them to the law. This reaction I expected. What was
surprising to me was my own supervisors were disappointed and
unsupportive of my efforts to simply enforce the bare minimum standards
in the Code of Federal Regulations. The USDA has a good ol’ boy
relationship with the research industry and the laws are nothing more
than smoke and mirrors. More than once, I was instructed by a supervisor
to make a personal list of violations of the law, cut that list in half,
and then cut that list in half again before writing up my inspection
reports. My willingness to uphold the law during my site visits at the
Primate Center led to me being “retrained” several times by higher-ups
in the USDA. Understand that the laws I was attempting to enforce require no more
than minimum standards— food and water, shelter from the elements, a
clean cage that protects from injury and “adequate” veterinary care—
that’s about it. At the Primate Center, the attending veterinarian tried
to march me through as fast as he could. Only when I specifically asked
to see a husbandry task, like cage washing, would he grudgingly show me.
I would spot check records on paper but for the most part, I had to take
the attending veterinarian on his word about procedures and veterinary
care. Because monkeys are intelligent, curious, active and social, so very
similar to people, in 1985 the Animal Welfare Act was amended, adding
language that focuses on their psychological well-being. The Federal
Animal Welfare Act, by regulation emphasizes monkeys’ social needs and
states in a special policy that these needs must be met, preferably by
monkeys being housed together. Unfortunately, these provisions were set
up without any real teeth. All the facility has to do is have a written
plan on file that says how they intend to provide for psychological
well-being. Dr. Kelley, the attending veterinarian, bragged about their
psychological well-being plan for the hundreds of monkeys housed
indoors. The plan states that the Primate Center will pair monkeys “to
the extent possible.” When I toured the facility, what I actually saw
was that the monkeys were almost all singularly caged and resultantly
displaying neurotic behaviors. The well-being plan also stated that
foraging devices intended to distract monkeys from self-abusive behavior
were to be routinely, regularly provided, especially to the singularly
housed animals. Instead, the staff admitted that they often didn’t have
the time to attend to the time-consumptive task of filling the devices
with food. It was clear that ORPRC had a psychological well-being plan
that wasn’t working but I was powerless to fix the problems. All I could
do was make suggestions that monkeys be housed in pairs or groups.
Nothing changed in the two years I was the inspector. One day in February of 1999 I received a phone call from an animal
technician working at the Primate Center who wished to remain anonymous
for fear of losing his job. I later found out it was Mr. Rossell. He
reported an outbreak of listeria in the outdoor corrals. He said that
monkeys were sick because of the winter rains and lots of babies were
dying. I went out to the Primate Center to take a look for myself. I
cited in my report, “…Corrals 5,3,6,4 and 1 were excessively wet and
muddy…Most adult monkeys appeared to have wet muddy tails buttocks and
feet…about 40 percent of the monkeys in Corral 5 and 3 have alopecia
(hair loss).” The Center was experiencing an outbreak of listeria and 10 of 82
females in Corral 5 had stillbirths as a result. I counted the numbers
sick with listeria, shigella, campylobacter, diarrhea and dehydration
and confirmed the complaint’s validity on all counts. I dug up the sick
and death tolls of previous winters and discovered that for the monkeys
housed outdoors, many more monkeys get sick and die during winter months
than in summer. I summed it up in my report to say the statistics
“…cause question if the monkeys are truly acclimatized to the weather
conditions here in Oregon.” The Attending Veterinarian, Dr. Kelley,
disagreed. He said the monkeys were acclimated. The law has a loophole.
The attending vet has the final say about whether animals are
acclimated, just as he does with psychologically adjustment and
distress. I filed my report which confirmed the complaint, but the USDA
took no action. The USDA has little motivation to enforce the already weak laws of
the Animal Welfare Act. I was unable to do my job and eventually, out of
frustration, I had to quit. I recognize the system is not set up to
protect the animals but instead the financial interests of the research
labs.
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