PCRM Steps Up Efforts to Keep Covance Laboratories Out of Chandler

PCRM needs your help as we step up efforts to prevent Covance Laboratories from building a 591,000-square-foot animal experimentation facility in Chandler, Ariz. Covance, a New Jersey-based contract testing company, recently filed preliminary plans for the project with the city’s Planning and Zoning Department, but the company faces growing local opposition from PCRM members and other concerned citizens.

PCRM has been informing Chandler residents for months about the dangers a Covance laboratory could pose to both animal and human health. The company, which is paid to test cosmetic ingredients, food additives, pesticides, and drugs on monkeys, dogs, rabbits, and rodents, has a history of animal cruelty.

Covance was recently investigated and fined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture based on documented allegations of striking, choking, and tormenting primates at its Virginia facility. Now, a new PCRM report details a long list of Animal Welfare Act violations at five Covance facilities around the country. The company is also one of the world’s largest breeder of dogs for experimentation and the largest importer of primates.

The proposed Chandler facility could also pose health threats to humans. Monkeys can carry an array of diseases dangerous to humans, including hepatitis B, shigella, tuberculosis, and Ebola. A Covance facility in Virginia, operating under the company’s previous name, was forced to shut down after a monkey there was found to be carrying the Ebola virus. Covance's plans include a thermal waste destruction unit, which could be used to burn animal carcasses and medical waste. This type of incinerator could release hazardous toxins into the atmosphere. That’s especially troubling because the proposed location for the facility lies less than one mile from a public school.

What You Can Do

Please write to Mayor Boyd Dunn and let him know you are worried about Covance’s history of animal abuse and the public health dangers a facility would pose to the citizens of Chandler.

Office of the Mayor and City Council
Mail Stop 603
P.O. Box 4008
Chandler, AZ 85244-4008

Please write the FDA acting Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D., and explain that the FDA should mandate the use of available non-animal test methods, many of which are in use and often required in the European Union, because they are better predictors of harm to human health.

Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D.
Acting Commissioner
Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857

PCRM Online, September 2006

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