The Diary of Michelle Rokke - 2

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12/11/96 Wednesday
Helped hold monkeys for pre-test bloods in 3334. The monkeys are forced to the front of the squeeze cage and trapped there by the false back. The technicians poke and pull whatever part of the animal they can reach without being bitten, banging and slamming the cage, until eventually a leg is pulled out of the cage. Preferably, the leg is pulled through the feedhole but not always. Brian bled one monkey as she hung in midair on the cage door, saying, "We take what we can get."
As usual with blood samples, the technicians fish around inside the animal's leg until they find a vein. Stephanie and Rachel tried countless times on each monkey they bled. Both complaining about not being able to find the vein. Irene and Brian had better luck and obtained their samples a little easier but several times I heard Brian call the monkey he was bleeding "bitch" if she moved at all.
In the next room, room 953, Kathy, Al and Eleanor came in to help. I helped by holding the site off after the sample was taken. The edges of the feedhole are rough and jagged and all of the monkeys had deep red marks, cuts and scratches on their thighs and stomachs from being forced through and held tightly against the rough metal. As I held the small legs in my hand I saw the fingerprints on the monkeys' hands and feet. Dilip told me each monkey has his or her own set of prints just like a human. No two are alike.
The technicians usually use a bent and jagged hunk of metal called a "guillotine," to block of the feeder hole after the primate's leg is pulled through. This protects the technician from being bitten or scratched while they get the sample. Often the primates will try and grab the technician's hand to keep them from jabbing the needle in or to push it away.
Every technician in the room, including Brian, Irene, Stephanie, Rachel, Al, Kathy, and Eleanor - the supervisor, cursed and swore at the primates when they struggled.
Stephanie got bit while trying to bleed one monkey but it didn't break the skin, though she said she could feel his teeth.
A monkey Kathy was bleeding grabbed her bonnet and mask off and she screamed and swore at him.
Study 3334 is one that's been done before but is being redone. The primates are given 'botox'-the test material, and then their leg measurements are taken over the course of the study. To take a pre-dose measurement, the primates' lower legs have to be shaved. Again, they were pulled to the front of the cage and trapped. One technician holds the primates arms through the front of the cage while another shaves his or her legs with an electric clipper. Then, both a string measurement and a calliper measurement are taken. One of the monkeys in 953 had such a look of despair on his face as he was held tightly to the cage door it was all I could do not to cry. He just looked so miserable.
Kathy taught me how to do food consumption in study 3278. The animal is fed a weighed amount of food, then, two hours later any remaining food is weighed and recorded. 3278 has food consumption Monday through Friday but not on the weekends.

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I'm not sure why weekend data isn't applicable to the yearlong study. It doesn't seem to make sense unless you look at it from the weekend staff?s point of view - extra work.
Kathy went in room 956 to capture an escaped monkey. Two of the pharmacy techs watched through the window and told me when Kathy went in and started chasing the primate, he scrambled up a cage and the monkey inside grabbed him and bit him - taking a big chunk or his tail off and mutilating his hand.
The monkey that attacked is a big male the techs call 'Boyfriend.' He has particularly big canine teeth and has been exempted from some of the tests required of the other monkeys because he is so big and ferocious. Kathy told me the name 'Boyfriend' stuck because when he first arrived (about three years ago) he was so friendly and nice they all kept exempting him from study saying "You can't do that to MY boyfriend! Na-ah!! You're not doing that to my boyfriend! ...but now he's just nasty and mean."
Kathy told me everything was fine until she started chasing the escaped monkey - that's when he got bit. The primate knew to avoid the larger male, but to avoid Kathy he scrambled up Boyfriend's cage.
Kevin went in to help her catch the monkey. There was blood all over the room. When they caught him, Kevin gave him ketaset and told someone to call the vet - who wasn't on site. Al ended up stitching him up in the prep room. Rosemary and an older man came down to look the monkey and decided he wasn't injured enough to be euthanased.
When Kathy came out of the room later, she said Boyfriend was still chewing on the chunk of tail he bit off the other monkey. Brian sent an e-mail to Robin and Rosemary about Boyfriend, saying he is dangerous and if he ever gets out he could kill one of us.
Most of the techs thought the injured primate should be euthanased. His hand swelled until his skin was tight and shiny. He had to have at least one finger amputated and several inches of his tail. For the first few days he was given an injection of Torbutrol (an analgesic), as per Terry's mandate. I'm not sure what the dosage requirements are for adequate pain relief but I didn't hear about anyone staying overnight to give him continuous pain relief.
The technicians who heard about the injured monkey talked about who could and couldn't go into the room to help because almost everyone, including Kathy, had been in a monkey room still under quarantine earlier in the day.
Once Eleanor sent a technician into a primate room after the technician protested she couldn't because she'd been in a quarantine room. Eleanor responded, "I saw you take a shower - you can go in."

12/12/96 Thursday HLS
I told Eleanor, Walter, Nick, Kevin, Kathy and Mahsa that a monkey in 958 was trapped behind his false back. They asked if he could get food and water. I said I put food back there and the water is there. Eleanor and Walter said almost in unison "Then he's WNL - within normal limits."

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I helped bleed pigs all day. Six pigs were bled post-dose for 12 hours. Each pig was hung in a sling, suspended in the air, legs flailing wildly. An IV catheter placed in his front leg to administer the dose. Then blood samples taken from the jugular twice during dose, once right after - while the pig was still hung in the sling, then every half hour for several samples, then bled in varying time increments, until 11:00 that night.
The pigs were so miserable in the slings it took a minimum of four technicians to hold them down - sometimes more. Eleanor inserted the catheters and took bloods, Walter held a front leg, Nick leaned on the pig from above, Mahsa was holding legs, and usually someone else had to hold the hind feet. There were so many people holding the pig still in the sling, you could hardly see the pig.
I held the pigs for bloods until 4:30 then went back at 9:00 for the last session. The pigs scream and kick violently when bled, especially today because their necks were so sore and bruised from the continual bloods. When pressure is applied to stop the bleeding afterwards, they scream so loudly I could hardly stand it. Technicians in the room would groan and yell "Shut-Up" at the pig.
I can't imagine how sore they must have been after being thrown on their backs and bled so many times. The pigs who leave their cages gladly for cleaning were not given the chance to jump out today. They were dragged out. At the night bleeding, the pigs were all sleeping and had to be dragged from their cages. They were so exhausted and reluctant to be bled again they didn't even stand up when the cage door was opened.
At the night bleeding, only Kevin, Dilip and I were there to bleed the first pig. Kevin walked in to get the pig from his cage for the sample. He grabbed a leg and threw the pig out of his cage - not pausing for a second after opening the cage door before grabbing the sleeping pig. The pig landed on his face and didn't have time to get up before Kevin threw him in the trough for bleeding. I asked him sarcastically if it had been a long day, he didn't answer - but that was ok because I had been referring to the pigs when I asked.
A man named James showed up to help bleed the rest of the pigs. He works in histology and necropsy and was not gentle or even minimally humane with the pigs. He dragged them to the trough, their faces hitting the floor as they went.
One of the pigs has an on-going problem with his penis hanging out and becoming infected. Kevin used water to lubricate it and push it back in. He squeezed the pus out and the pig screamed violently. I've seen him do this before, using KY lubricant and not using as much force. The pig did not react as hysterically on that occasion.
Kevin was mad because someone told Terry the pigs hadn't had a cage change for over six weeks. They're supposed to be changed every two weeks. He said several times he'd like to know how she found out. I asked him if it had really been that long. He laughed and said it had probably been longer.

12/14/96 Saturday
Cleaned study 3274. Dog 4567 has ulcerated feet (photos). I've gotten to know these dogs so well in the last few months. They all have their own personalities and each one is so special.

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I cleaned study 3322, room 920. The dogs still have rashes, inflamed ears and need their nails trimmed.
I cleaned study 3278, room 904. Some days I can hardly walk in this room - it's so sad. They're all so eager to be loved - so tired of being locked in these tiny cages.
Dog number 2550F still has an on-going rash on her ears. 12/15/96 Sunday HLS I cleaned study 3314. Several of the primates are missing the 'enrichment' mirrors that are supposed to be on each cage.
In 3314, I took photos of James. It's hard to photograph the other monkeys because they're so afraid they jump to the back of the cage and turn toward the cage wall. James is always at the front of his cage staring longingly at the door. He looks so sad. He's interested in things I show him, like the hose and my ID badge, but it seems he only looks at them because there's nothing better to do.
I cleaned the Bristol Myer Squibb pigs.
I cleaned 3274. The dogs get so sick from the test material and vomit so often, sometimes I don't even notice it until I realize it's not rinsing off the cage floor as I clean. I cleaned 3322, room 920.
I cleaned study 3278, room 904. There is a dog in this room I call Spud. He's got an adorable square-shaped nose and a silly grin on his face. He sits quietly, grinning and leaning against the cage door most of the time. But when I open the door - look out!! He wants desperately to be held - ALL OF THE TIME. When I put him on the floor to run and stretch his legs, he only jumps at my legs, begging to be picked up. The second his feet hit the ground he's bouncing back up in the air at me.
I can't even begin to close the cage door before he leaps out at me and tries to jump into my arms. When I put him in the exercise cage with a playmate, he only stands in the part of the cage closest to where I am and tries to get my attention. When the other dog tries to get him to play he brushes him off with an impatient growl, as if he'll lose his one chance for affection if he stops to play. Colgate Palmolive knows of him on paper only as dog number 1051. I know him as my little Spud with the silly grin and the boundless need for love.

12/18/96 Wednesday HLS
Didn't Work

12/19/96 Thursday HLS
Held dogs for bloods in 3328. Kevin bled the dogs I held. Jennifer held while Stephanie bled. The dogs in the third and fourth dose groups were salivating excessively. Kevin cursed and yelled at the dogs when saliva dripped on him. After one dog, Jennifer pulled her tyvex off complaining the inside of her sleeve was all wet from the dog's saliva.

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Three of the dogs I held cried excessively when Kevin tried to get blood. They whimpered and screamed and eventually even involuntarily snapped because of the pain. When he finally repositioned the needle they quieted down slightly. Several times Kevin had to fish around inside the dog to find the vein. This is common in all of the bloods I've held for. The technicians insert the needle and hope for the best. If they don't get blood they slide the needle in and out, back and forth until they hit a vein.
One of the dogs was so terrified and struggled so much I couldn't begin to hold him. Kevin called Dilip from the room he was cleaning to hold him. Kevin told him "Dilip! I want you to break this dog!" They got the sample they wanted.
In 958, study 3314, primate number 7028F still has watery diarrhoea.
17 cyno's arrived for study 3307. Stephanie told me they were at HLS for a few months earlier this year. The study was cancelled by Shering-Plough, the sponsor, so they were shipped back to Shering-Plough. Now the study is back on so they came back to HLS again. They have to go through the quarantine period again and all of the other start up tests, like the tb tests. They're tested for tb every two weeks until three negative tests are obtained, then regularly after that.
The primates are shipped three in each crate, in separate compartments. I helped Lynn, Stephanie, and Rachel un-crate the monkeys. They used a power drill and a screwdriver to loosen the doors, then held the crates up to the cage doors so the primates could jump in. Rachel immediately pulled each of the first eight monkeys to the front of the squeeze cage and gave them an injection of keta-ject. Stephanie and Rachel asked if I had ever given an intramuscularly injection. I told them I haven't and they told me how to do it. Rachel motioned to the next monkey and told me to try it. Before 1 had the monkey positioned, Stephanie called me over to help her.
After the monkeys were sedated, Rachel took them out one at a time and did a tb test on them. This test was done on the primate's left eye. She injected the tuberculin solution under the skin in the monkey's left eyelid. Some of the primate's eyelids were bleeding when she was through. When Rachel was done with the tb test, Stephanie weighed them and de-wormed them. When Stephanie was through, she lined the knocked out monkeys up on top or one or the crates that still contained primates.
Lynn had trouble getting the first ear-tag in and as she struggled with that, Stephanie had three tranquillised primates lined up on top of the crates and two lined up on the rolling cart. Lynn pierced the primate's ear at least twice. Each time the tool didn't connect the tag and it had to be redone. Finally she asked me to call Kathy in to help. Rachel sent me for more ketaset because the monkeys were starting to wake up, and they still had to be ear-tagged.
I had to apply pressure to two or the monkey's ears because they were bleeding a lot after tagging.

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When Rachel got one of the primates out or the cage after sedation, she said "They look so cute when they're out." Then she said "look!" and she swung the monkey around through the air above her and back and forth in front of her.

12/21/96 Saturday HLS
The dogs from 3328 were sacrificed today. They had to be brought over from I-wing to the necropsy room. James loaded four to eight dogs in an exercise cage and pulled them over to the main building. The puppies waited in the hall with the dumpster full or bloody garbage bags containing already dead dogs right next to them. The table where the euthanasia is done was directly across from them. The smell or formaldehyde was heavy in the air and by the end of the day, there was blood all over the hallway.
In room 957, my friendly little monkey who hangs on the cage door, lets me stroke his hand and drinks water droplets gently from the hose now paces nervously in his cage. I wasn't even able to snap a picture of him because he was pacing so much. I couldn't figure out what would change his personality so much in just a few days.
Later, I saw on the behaviour chart he had been acclimated to the nasal-gastric tube the day before. Where before I saw sad loneliness, now I see fear bordering on hysteria. A realization that what was a bad situation for this gentle little monkey has now become his worst nightmare.
There was blood all over room 957 when I went in to clean. Big drops on the floor and smears all over several cages. I couldn't see a source for the blood on any of the primates. I wonder if it was a result of the n-g tube acclimation.
One of the primates was out of his cage when I went in but he went in his cage on his own and Irene shut the door behind him.
In room 958, primates number 7003M, 7024F, and 7020F, were all trapped at the front of the cage by the false back when I went in to clean.
This is very common. The primates can un-hook the simple latch that holds the false back at the rear of the cage and they scoot them forward - probably just for something to do - and often they get stuck, not able to release the latch again. The primates have no access to water when they're stuck at the front of the cage.
In room 958, study 3314, primate 7028F still has very watery diarrhoea.
Primate 6997M is always covered in his own faeces. He eats it and smears it all over himself and the cage.
Some of the pigs are emaciated. I can clearly feel the ribs of several of them and one pig, 5M - a tan and black pig, I could also see ribs.
The pigs have grown so dramatically since I started three months ago that I can't lift them anymore. I don't think their food volume has been adjusted to accommodate their growth.

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I told Kevin that I could feel ribs on some of the pigs because they're so skinny. He told me not to worry about it. I told him he should go look at them to see what I mean. He told me not to worry about it.

12/22/96 Sunday HLS
Today I had to say goodbye to all the dogs in study 3274. They will be killed this week - some of them on Christmas Eve.
I'm trying to think of something remarkable I could write about them one last time. But, there's nothing too remarkable about being locked in a two-foot cage for one full year - -getting lonelier and crazier and sicker as the days drag by.
I'm telling myself I'm glad for them. Glad they finally get the release death will bring. What I really think is it's just not right. Not right they will die without ever being loved.

12/25/96 Wednesday HLS
When I went to clean the pigs' cages today I was surprised to discover they were gone. Eleanor and someone else sacrified them yesterday. There were no necropsies done. The pigs were just sent to the incinerator.
Several of the techs told about another time they had sacrified pigs - thinking they were dead only to see them get up and run around the room and chasing them with the needle.
Study 3278, dog #2051 has an infected ear tag site (photos).

12/26/96 Thursday
The primates don't have fruit, and there are barely any treats left for them. In room 922, the 'extra' primate colony - the primate in the cage next to 6894F has no marking on her cage and no tags or tattoos. I heard some of the techs talking about Terry saying at the end of physicals "This must be number [??], because we haven't examined her yet, and she's the only one left..."
Number 6896 only has half a tail. Number 6847M has a large bloody wound on his left arm. (photos) Number 6912F has a broken feeder on her cage. Several of the primates do not have enrichment mirrors on their cages.

12/28/96 Saturday HLS
Still no treats for the primates. Brian used an air popper to make popcorn for them. Jennifer, Brian, Irene and I were in the tech room. Jennifer was complaining about the way things were done at HLS and brought up some things she didn't like, saying people need to be more compassionate here. Brian stopped the conversation by raising his voice and saying to Jennifer "Sometimes you're TOO compassionate." Jennifer said she didn't think she was "too compassionate" and they argued back and forth about various issues involving animal care at HLS.

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One of the things they debated was fruit for the primates. Jennifer told about holding the bag of raisins out for the monkeys to help themselves and how they'll often grab the bag in one hand and shovel raisins into their mouths with the other. Brian said he thought getting just a peanut or a couple of raisins was enough for them and told about a management person a while ago writing an SOP that monkeys could receive one peanut or one single raisin as a treat and no more.
Jennifer said "One raisin? What's the point?" Then Brian said he remembered when the monkeys didn't get any treats at all. He's worked at Huntingdon almost six years. When Jennifer trained me to ob primate rooms she got fruit from the refrigerator and put it in the sink to wash it before we left the treat room. I asked her why since I'd never seen anyone else wash fruit before giving it to the primates. She said, "Well, you never know what's on it. Would you want to eat unwashed fruit?" When Jennifer and Brian were arguing, Irene took the middle ground. I think she thinks Jennifer is too compassionate but also that Brian is not nearly compassionate enough.
In study 3278, room 906, I saw dog number 2054 eat his faeces. All of the dogs in this study need their nails trimmed (photo).
Dog number lO55M, Joey, is so thin. I can see his ribs and backbone. He didn't seem this thin when I first met him. He's a control dog and is dosed with an empty capsule each day. I think he's just not thriving in this barren lonely environment.
In study 96-3334, the test material is 'Bo-Tox', a botulism derivative. The primates were given a single injection of the test material with a long recovery period afterward. The test material is so toxic, almost all of the high dosage group died within days. I saw one of the primates in a moribund condition right before she was sacrificed. She was lying on the bottom of her cage, her breathing was shallow and rapid. She looked very pale and miserable. Kevin called the study director to authorize euthanasia.
There was another primate right next to the one who was euthanased who didn't look very much better. When I asked Kevin about her, he said "She's not doing good, but she'll make it 'til morning. This one wouldn't have and she's suffering." I told him again the other monkey didn't look very good. He said 'She'll probably make it until tomorrow." Thank God for autolysis - if the sponsors didn't worry about loss of data as the tissue decomposes after death, many animals would never be humanely euthanased. As it is now, many animals suffer until business hours resume.
Jennifer trained me to capsule dose in the Colgate study. We were waiting outside the Colgate rooms for another employee to get back from pharmacy with the test material for 3278/3323. On her last day working at Huntingdon, Jennifer Fine told me "All or the studies are so screwed up all the time because no one cares. No one cares if stuff gets done right and there's always problems. I feel so sorry for all of the animals. How would you like to be locked in a cage all of the time with nothing to do?" In response to the dogs looking happy, being inside and having food to eat, She said "But they can't reason. All they know is they want to run and play and be dogs."

12/29/96 Sunday
Still no treats for the primates. Brian told me he heard no one wanted to go to the store. Even the popcorn's running low.

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1/l/97 Wednesday
Obbed 2484, a Union Carbide feed study. There are 144 rats on test. The test material is polyvinyl acetate. An MSDS sheet from Union Carbide for another study with the same test material referred to polyvinyl acetate as a chewing gum base resin.
Obbed and cleaned 3617, the Chiron monkeys. Irene told me their cages haven't been changed for a long time and they are way over due for a cage change.
Obbed and cleaned 3314. My little James was stressed out this morning. He hung on the front of his cage like always but he wouldn't look at me. He took popcorn from my fingers when I offered it but he was very distracted. I checked the room record to see if he had to go through more acclimation to the ECG board or the naso-gastric tube but it had already been removed and the new record put in place. There were clogged drains in room 957 (photo). Obbed and cleaned 3278. The dogs are so very hungry for attention. Dog number 2054's nails are curling around into his pad.

1/2/97 Thursday
Irene, Cesair, Lynn and I acclimated the primates in 3314 to the ECG board. They really struggle and panic at being strapped down. This is so stressful on the primates I find it hard to believe any of the data is usable.
The primates are so afraid they jump wildly around the cage when the technician tries to catch them. They're trapped at the front of the cage by the false-back and the technicians bang on the cage, holler and curse at them until the primate ends up putting some part of their body against the front of the cage. The techs grab whatever they can reach and pull - hair, skin, tail, finger, toe...whatever they can grab.
Eventually the primate is captured and with his or her arms locked securely behind his or her back, carried through the air to the ECG board. The ECG board is a sheet of plexiglass with holes cut through it. The primate is strapped tightly to the board with long Velcro strips holding his/her legs down and a leather-gloved technician holding his shoulders down. The techs place a couple or fingers over the primate's throat - if they struggle, they cut off their air supply. Many of the monkeys try to turn their heads to bite the technician's gloved hands and monkeys are heaved back into their cages by techs.
Blood pressure cuffs are placed around the primate's thighs. Usually the cuffs don't fit well and a Velcro strip has to be placed around it to hold it on. Brian told me we really shouldn't use the Velcro strips. If the cuffs aren't placed carefully, the Velcro on them pinch the skin and abrade it. Metal clips that pinch so tightly they leave bruises and red sores are connected to arms, legs, chest and back.
Cesair carried the primates like prisoners of war to the ECG board and back to their cages. Several times (twice on video) he swung them backwards through the air, then quickly forward, acting like he was really going to throw them hard into their cages. When he did release them into the cage he tossed them to the back so they couldn't turn back around.

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Irene told me we use two blood pressure machines, one on each leg, because it's faster and we don't have to wait so long to get the readings we need. Irene told me "The blood pressure cuffs are disposable but with this company we reuse them." The Velcro wears out so we have to secure it with extra strips of Velcro wrapped around the entire cuff. Brian told me we really shouldn't use the extra Velcro because it alters the reading.
Irene told me they shaved the monkeys in spots because they had been dyed for identification in a group colony at the suppliers. She said they were expecting a hair colour change from the test material so they shaved the dyed places.
Irene said we don't even have apples to give them when we're through with ECG's. Cesair said we should refuse to do ECG's because of it. The SOP's clearly state each primate should receive half an apple after an ECG.
Cesair holds the primates without cutting off their air supply the way the other handlers do. Cesair motioned to the primate who is so stressed he always eats his faeces and smears it all over himself and the cage. Cesair called him a "shit monkey", Irene pointed out he's got it all over his face. (video) I asked about the primate in 3221 who didn't have to have ECG's because his wrist was injured. Irene said they dislocated it holding the monkey on the door. (He had struggled so hard he dislocated his wrist.)
The primates are so afraid they almost always urinate and defecate on the ECG board or on the way to the ECG board.

1/4/97 Saturday HLS
Obbed and cleaned 3314. Number 6698, ab4a, looked into my eyes when I kneeled in front of his cage. He reached out and started grooming me. Some of my hair was hanging out of the bonnet and he started gently looking through it. When I held out my hand he groomed and picked at my arm and hand. He smoothed my eyebrows and groomed them. Then, he stretched his body out so I could pet him.
When I was through cleaning the room, I offered him a half an orange. He wouldn't 1ake it so I put it inside the cage and slid it up the cage door to where he was sitting. He looked at me and licked and nibbled at the orange while I held it. For several minutes he wouldn't hold the orange on his own, only eating it while I held it for him. He was so gentle when he ate it, even though his tongue was almost brushing my hand, I knew he wouldn't bite me.
Obbed 2484. The rats have nothing to do in their barren cages but eat the poisoned food and sit on the cold metal wires.

1/5/97 Sunday HLS
In 96-3314, James was stressed, he stared at the door to the room for a long time and shook his cage door in frustration. Then, he looked into my eyes and started grooming me.

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I got some video of the rats in study 2484. Al told me when lob them I shouldn't touch the cage at all to elicit movement. He said he used to do it that way and someone told him he would give the rats heart attacks and kill them doing that. When the racks are changed and the room is cleaned the cages are jostled and the cages are banged with no regard for the rat's health. Today is the last day for some of the Colgate dogs to be alive.
My little Spud is scheduled to die first thing Monday morning. I gave him a last hug today and held his wiggly body close to mine. When I looked at him sitting in his cage with the same expectant grin he always has, I felt sick.
When I was cleaning, I stopped to look at dog number 2550F, who was in the exercise cage all alone. She was doubled over in the cage with her head pushed up against the cage door. Her front paws were pressed tightly against the top of her head and as I watched, she started pawing at her head.
I opened the cage door to see what was wrong with her and she almost tumbled out of it because she was pressing forward so hard with the top of her head. She managed to sit up a little, but her body went rigid and her eyes were glassy and distant. Her tail was hanging rigidly straight down. Her head started to bob and rock back and forth. She was having a seizure.
Normally this dog is quite hyper and active. Her tail wags and she always follows me when I walk past her cage. When I spoke to her during the seizure she didn't respond at all. It was as if I wasn't there. Her body was stiff and her head continued to bob for about three to four minutes. The whole seizure from start to finish lasted about five minutes. Afterwards she seemed normal. I couldn't see anything different in her personality or behaviour.
I found Kevin and told him about the seizure. He looked at the dog and said she seemed fine. I asked him if I should add it to the daily obs and fill out a vet request. He told me it wouldn't matter - she was getting sacrificed tomorrow anyway.
It was pure coincidence that I happened to be in the room, and happened to notice this dog having a seizure. Normally, there is someone in the room for AM obs and feeding - maybe ten minutes tops, for food consumption five days of the week - about 15 minutes, and cleaning and PM obs - an hour if I do it - much less if some of the others do it. On an average, there are only people in the room for a little over an hour each day. Most people don't stop to really look at the dogs, they just complete the assigned task as quickly as possible and leave the room. That I happened to glance at the exercise cage while I was cleaning, just as the seizure started, was pure fate. I wonder how many other seizures this dog and the other dogs have had in the past year that no one has seen.
How can this study be valid when the dogs on test are not monitored 24 hours a day? This is the second time I've seen a dog on test seizure (the other was a dog in study 3318), and I've never heard anyone else say they've seen one. The only way research labs can even pretend to be legitimately looking for adverse effects is to hire board certified veterinarians to monitor each room of animals 24 hours a day.

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I noticed one of the group four dogs had the same scar-wrinkled ears that 2550 has. Dog #2550 has had these red bumpy ears for months. (photos)

1/8/97 Wednesday HLS
Two-thirds of the Colgate Palmolive dogs are dead. Number 2550 was sacrificed without regard to the seizure I witnessed on Sunday. Apparently that wasn't important data, probably because it proves adverse long-term effects.
I went in to see Joey one last time. Each time I went by room 906, there were fewer and fewer dogs left. Each of the remaining dogs grew more and more frantic about getting my attention when I looked in the window.
I asked Brian in necropsy to save number 1055, Joey, for me. He's one of the control dogs and got an empty gelatin capsule each day. Brian told me there was nothing wrong with any of the other control dogs that he'd already sacrificed. When I asked him not to kill 1055 and to save him for me. He asked me why. I told him he just seemed like a nice dog. He laughed at me and said "Yeah, but what does he do?" I shrugged and just told him I liked him. He laughed again. Needless to say, Joey was killed.
I looked through the window when just 4055 remained. Normally he is very stoic and calm, but today I saw him barking frantically and dancing all around his cage in the empty room. When he saw me looking at him, his barking became hysterical and I had to walk away. I couldn't even go in to give him one last reassuring word. I was his last chance in those final moments before death and there was nothing I could do to help him.
As I tore myself from the window, I prayed he would be the last dog Colgate kills. People will never have his frantic barking echoing in their heads the way I always will, but maybe they'll carry his image with them. At the store, with their mighty buying dollar in hand, maybe they'll remember the image of 2550's helplessness as she seizured. Maybe 4055's image will keep them from buying the insecticide that Colgate Palmolive forced down his throat every day for a year.
Maybe Joey's image will keep people from buying any Colgate Palmolive product until they stop testing on animals. Maybe little Spud's image will inspire people to keep fighting for the animals. Because until people say NO to animal testing thousands of Spuds and Joeys and an inconceivable number of 4055's will suffer and die.

1/9/97 Thursday HLS
While talking about ECG's in 3314, Walter and Irene were joking about how long we could get away with using two blood pressure cuffs when doing ECG's before we got caught. Everyone is happy the Colgate dogs are dead. The pharmacy techs had to come in early every day of the week to prepare the capsules and now they don't have to. The techs are pleased there is no more food consumption to do.
Brian in necropsy told me the Colgate dogs were really hard for the technicians to get blood from. He said the dogs really fought it.

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1/11/97 Saturday HLS
In room 957, 4 out of 28 primates had no enrichment mirrors. In room 958, 9 out of 28 primates had no enrichment mirrors.
In room 922, 15 of the approximately 40 primates had no enrichment mirrors, and one of the mirrors was inadequate.
The drains are clogged in room 922, the extra primate colony 93-3093.
In study 3314, almost all of the primates have severe bruising on their legs from being held against the rough feeder hole for bloods (photo). I heard Rachel ask Stephanie if she had seen the way the monkeys looked after Nick bled them. They both rolled their eyes and exclaimed over how rough Nick is with the monkeys when he bleeds them.
Stephanie is the primary tech for study 3314. She showed me the study schedule and complained about how labour intensive it will be. The primates get dosed on Wednesday for the first time and every day after for three months.
Stephanie told me the test material is a nasal decongestant. She told me in the pilot study that was run on the primates in the Proctor and Gamble pharmacokinetic colony 94- 3221, the dose level was really high and they had a lot of trouble after dosing. There are memos about moribund monkeys and nothing in the protocol calling for euthanasia of suffering animals. The primates had decreased faecal output. She said when Terry did physicals after the pilot study ended, she noticed one of the surviving primates used still had a really hard mass in his intestines from stool not being evacuated.
She told me the pilot study used a high dose of 100 mgs, and the monkeys got so sick, one had to be euthanased and one was touch and go. She said she thought the high dose for this study would be 80mgs. She said the sponsor kept calling and changing the protocol. The primates will be bled round the clock several times during the course of the study. Wednesday and Thursday, the first dose day are extremely brutal. They go through pre-test bloods, dosing, bloods one hour after dose, two hours after dose, four hours, eight hours, and twelve hours after dose, and ECG's.

1/12/97 Sunday HLS
Photos of severe bruising in 3314 after bloods.
Primates with severe bruising in 3314 include 7030F, 7031F, 7028F, 7001M, 7027F, 7025F, 6996M, 7018F, 6992M, 7020F, 7022F, 7023 has scratches and bruises, 7021F, 6993M.
When I went in to clean 933093 room 922, the second female primate, number 6894F, had gotten her head caught in the false back. She was bent over sideways at the back of the cage. The false back was not latched and pulled forward slightly. Her entire forehead up to the bridge of her nose was stuck in the open space that allows the waterspout to come through. She was screaming when I walked in. I don't know how long she'd been caught. They were obbed sometime around 7:30 and it was about 10:00 when I found her (photos).

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Justin and Dilip were dosing 3323 and they both came in to help free the primate. Dilip went to the guard station to get the bolt cutters. Justin put on leather gloves to try and free the primate. He tried pulling on her to see of she would pull free but she just became more hysterical. He tried twisting her head around and she screamed in pain and fear.
Eventually he scared her enough she forced her whole head through the spout hole. Now, she was literally hanging by her neck through the gap in the false back. After twisting and pulling on her for several minutes while she screamed and struggled, he managed to free her. Her face was bruised and bloody. (photos)
(photos; 6848 - lock, 6852 - ??, 6847M - sores, scabs) There was a loose monkey in room 953.

1/15/97 Wednesday HLS
Helped Rachel, Justin and Dilip with ECG's in 3314. We were unable to get blood pressure readings on some of the primates, probably because they've had so many bloods drawn. There were three or four technicians in the room drawing blood while we were doing ECG's including, Irene, Cesair, Kevin, Lynn, and Brian. In addition to the technicians, Rosemary Mandella, the study director, and the sponsor observed the procedures for quite a while.
There were about ten people in the room for the first hour or so of ECGs. It was very chaotic. Justin made a point to talk nicely to the primates while the sponsor was there but quit once they left. At one point, in response to one of the primates shrieking, all of the technicians joined in a loud whooping war cry that was ear shattering. So much for a quiet atmosphere for accurate ECG's. Occasionally one or two of the technicians would repeat the "war cry" as they drew blood.
One primate was really struggling as he was carried to the table and restrained. Justin held the monkey down, with his thumbs over the monkey's throat (a restraining tactic I've seen several of the technicians use including Justin, Dilip and Yimmer - this helps control a struggling primate by restricting his or her air supply) and the primate's arms pinned back. He leaned close to the monkey's face and yelled "Stop it, before I bite your face!"
Several of the technicians, including Kathy, Irene, Brian and Justin had joked throughout the week about how many monkeys would die as a result of "lung-shots" - if the naso-gastric tube is improperly placed in the animal's trachea and lung instead of their oesophagus and stomach, the animal receives the test material in the lung and dies within minutes. Justin brought it up again during ECG's and went on to tell me about having a "platinum club" in the past. He said I should ask Brian about it, he may still have the list. If you killed an animal you were in the club. He said he had the most kills. He said he killed a dog once - "It just dropped over after dosing." He said he broke a monkey's arm once and it had to be euthanased.

1/16/97 Thursday HLS
The puppies in study 3337 are very shy and many of them cower in the corner of the cage once the door is opened.
Irene, Brian, Yao and I did tb tests and bodyweights in study 97-3093 (formerly 3307 - the Shering-Plough primate study was cancelled and is now another extra colony.)

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Yao sedated the primates with Ketaset. Irene and I weighed them and Brian did the tb tests. He grabbed one primate by the scruff and while he held her in one hand he injected the tb solution under her eyelid. He did it in midair without laying the primate down. He told me "You didn't see that. It never happened. You can't prove it. You're not supposed to it that way." (video has verbatim quote.)
Brian routinely grabbed the primates by the scruff and transported them across the room by the scruff.
After the primates are injected with ketaset, they are left in their cages unattended as it takes affect. They literally drop to the cage floor as the anaesthetic takes affect. No one has ever mentioned their safety when they drop nor have I ever seen anyone try to prevent them from falling. I saw several primates hanging onto the very top corner of their cage and fall helplessly to the bottom when the drug took affect.
Brian propped several of the primates up over the edge of the cage while he did the tb test. He walked away from monkey's several times, leaving them in that position after that the test - half in and half out of the cage. The guillotine door was precariously lodged above them and could have fallen down and injured the animals at any time. One sedated primate was left hanging with her throat over the perch bar in her cage after being weighed and tb tested. Irene walked by and said, "Who did that" and unlocked the cage door.
I thought she was going to move the primate to a safer position, prone on her side as per SOP but she only removed the lock and re-locked it on the cage. No one was concerned that the monkey's air supply would be cut off. Another primate flailed wildly as she recovered from anaesthesia. She crawled toward me and grasped as whatever she could reach to steady herself. Her eyelid was still bleeding from the tb test.
The last primate Brian tb tested was not completely anaesthetised and Irene told him to wait telling him it wasn't worth rushing. Brian propped her up over the edge of her cage, and tugged and pulled on her arm while he waited for her to become sedated. As I've seen in the past, no one stayed in the room to monitor the primate's recovery from anaesthesia.
Stayed late to help with ECG's in 3314. (Lynn was ill, so I covered for her.) Kevin, Nick and Stephanie were bleeding the primates when Irene, Yimmer and Dilip went in to start ECG's. The new video enrichment cart was in the room and they were playing "The Nutty Professor". The volume was up so loud I could hardly hear what the people next to me were saying. It was very chaotic in the room, with the TV blaring, the techs laughing and yelling, and the primates screaming. We had already completed ECG's on at least three animals when Irene finally told Kevin she didn't think it was a good idea to have the movie running while we were trying to do ECG's. He shrugged and told her it was almost done. After several more minutes the movie ended.
The primates have had so many bloods drawn their blood pressures are very low. We had to leave one primate's reading blank because it wouldn't even register on the machine. It's footnoted as "unable to obtain data."

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Primate 2073 was very freaked out about being strapped down for his ECG. He tried to turn his head and bite at Yimmer's leather gloved hands. Kevin came over and shook his finger in the restrained primate's face and said in a loud obnoxious voice "Don't you bite my friend." He grabbed the lotion bottle and quickly put lotion on all the contact points, saying loudly "Here, Here, Here " He started to put the lotion down and stopped himself. He put the open lotion bottle into the primate's mouth and gave it a squeeze, leaving the bottle upside down in the monkey's mouth as he walked away. Dilip removed the bottle a couple of seconds later.

1/18/97 Saturday HLS
In 94-3221, a primate has a big piece of skin tom off his little finger. Even knowing what I know about the intelligence and sentience of primates, I was spellbound as I looked at the human-like finger- the wound exposed. (photos)
In 93-3093 many monkeys' cages are missing enrichment mirrors (photo).

1/19/97 Sunday
In room 947, study 97-3093 - the new extra colony, there are 37 female primates. 13 of them have no enrichment mirrors. Only two of them will take treats from my hand, the others are very afraid and defensive.
In the canine extra colony, 93-3091, the population now consist of: 1250F, 1317F, 1330F - 96- 3325, 1264F, 1384F - A-78 96-3328, 1255F, 1326F - 96-3325, 1327F - 96-3325, 1395F - A- 78 96-3328, 1190M, 1309M - 96-3325, 1357M - 96-3323, 1342M Z-5 96- 3323, 1304M - 96-3325, 1345M - 96-3323, 1367M - 96-3328, 1339M - 96-3323, 1272M, 1313M - -96-3325

1/22/97 Wednesday HLS
Obbed and cleaned room 919, study 97-3337, Justin unhooked the water hoses in preparation for urine collection. I moved the first two dogs to the exercise cages and Justin told me not to move the dogs from the cages, just hose out the pans and then help wipe them out. The puppies in this room are very shy and the water spraying underneath them really scared them.
When I was through hosing the faeces out, I helped put the urine jars on the back of the cages. The Chiron primates in 97-3619 had sponges implanted in their backs today. Each primate had six incisions made and tiny one-centimetre gel-soaked sponges were implanted under their skin. The primates will be given an injection three times a week with the dose material. The injection is supposed to go into the sponge.
Al and Brian were surgeons, Irene and Cesair prepped, Yao assisted and Kevin and I worked recovery. The primates were given an injection of Ketamine and one of atropine. The right arm was tattooed with the new study number. These primates have been used in many different studies and each now has three tattoos and at least one ear-tag. Cesair tattooed the primates and they jumped and jerked whenever the tattoo needle made contact with their skin. At least one other person and sometimes two, had to restrain the animal during the procedure. Irene pointed out the fact the tattoo site swells up almost immediately because their skin is so thin.

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Before the four-digit tattoo was done, the first digits had already puffed up and caused swelling all along the monkey's forearm.
The primates are masked down with isoflurane to make them calm enough to intubate. While Al prepared to start the surgery on the sixth primate, and Irene, Cesair and I prepped the seventh for Brian. Al came into the prep room and asked if we had more autoclaved surgical packs ready. I had put two in the autoclave nearly 50 minutes before but the pressure hadn't even built up enough to start the sterilization.
Al took some individually sterilized instruments into the operating room but he didn't have a complete set. He came back in the prep room and waited by the autoclave. Meanwhile the two primates were fully anaesthetised. I saw AI push the timer on the autoclave ahead so it would 'ding' before the process was complete. He carried the two packs into the OR and saw that only one had been fully sterilized. The sterilization tape on the lower pack had not changed colour and he had to return it to the autoclave. One primate was still anaesthetised on the table and the surgery on him had not yet begun.
When the second pack was through being autoclaved I rushed it into the OR and saw Brian was halfway through the surgery on his primate but he was using the operating table that Al had been using. He declined the new pack and motioned to the instruments all around him saying he was fine. He had apparently just moved his primate to Al's table and used his dirty instruments. After lunch Gene came in and told us Yao would be doing the surgery on the last primate and he had checked it with Terry, the veterinarian.
The sponsor, Rob Tressler, flew the test material and sponges from California personally and the study director asked him to observe the first surgery. He was talking about animal rights and said in the community his lab is in - around Berkeley - all hell would break loose if they [animal rights activists] ever found out they had non-human primates. Dian Blasett said ?... Huntingdon is lucky because of the location and the fact New Jersey had all those pharmaceutical companies and they'd rather hit those."
Mr. Tressler said he had worked at Southwest Research Institute for awhile and they had about 1500 otters they were doing electro magnetic research on and he didn't even want to know about it - they were really lucky no one knew about it. Several of the primates still had catheters implanted in them from the last study they were in. I felt a femoral catheter in one of the last monkeys I carried in. Irene showed me one monkey who, once he was anaesthetised and his head fell back, had a big three -five inch loop of plastic tubing coming out of his skin. The area where the catheter was coming out of the skin was red and inflamed. Irene showed me how it had come through the primate's skin.
I remember when I first began obbing 96-3617, some of the primates were observed as having open wounds after the catheters were pulled. When I asked Irene why so many of these same monkeys still had catheters, she said if they look like they've healed up alright they leave them in, but if they look infected and inflamed they pull them, though, of course usually they're sacrificed so they don't do anything with them.
Terry noted in the pre-study physical that four of the primates still had catheters demarcations.

1/23/97 Thursday HLS
Gene told me we have a micro-pig study starting sometime in February. He said it's an acute study for a company called Novo Nordisk using 12 pigs.

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They will each be brought into surgery, anaesthetised and given three doses of test material while their blood pressures and heart rates are monitored. They are sacrificed after the data has been collected. He said, "It won't be a money-making study because it's already been done and paid for - we'll just be re-doing it. Last year the study was done but it had major flaws including a bad study design." He said, "The pigs were improperly anaesthetised. They were so deep they kept experiencing apnea (they stopped breathing) throughout the experiment.
The company told the sponsor it was a result of the test material - they had a bad drug." Gene said, "Of course they already had a lot of information of about their drug and knew it was "safe". That, and apnea was occurring even before the test material was administered. So, when they handed the sponsor the data and said they had a bad drug, the sponsor said 'Uh-uh, don't think so."' Gene told me he "...fixed the problem though." He said he "...designed a study that was guaranteed to make their drug look good - no matter what."
When I raised my eyebrows he said he happened to know their drug was safe - they had gone to another company and had the same study done there -and -since it had been a year since the failed study at Huntingdon [probably then owned by Pharmco] the drug had already passed phase one in humans." He nodded knowingly and said again he "...knew it was a safe drug and we were just running the study again, basically because the sponsor had already paid for it.
Gene also told me he knows accidents happen and things like mis-dosing are just bound to happen. He said he'll probably get in trouble for this some day but he never records things like mis-dosing in our personnel files like he's supposed to. He gave the example of Yao mis-dosing in the capsule study a few months ago and said he hadn't put that in his file. He also said Jennifer was involved in a mis-dose and then shrugged. He reiterated "...accidents happen and that's no reason to permanently mar someone's record."
There are three new dog studies starting up. 3337 is a study testing Lidocaine and Dextromethorphane. It's a 30-day nasal toxicity test and Eleanor told Irene and I that dosing would take an hour and they get dosed every day. Each dog on study will get a two-minute nasal drip of the test material 3 or 4 times in an hour. This is going to be a very rough study to watch - These puppies are so sweet and so shy. Most of them have only been alive for 5-6 months and they just want to be held and cuddled. They want to run and play and sniff. They want to be reassured that they don't need to be afraid when people come near them - as it is now, most of them huddle in the back of the cage and slink down when you reach for them.

1/25/97 Saturday HLS
I obbed the cardio primates (Chiron) who had surgery on Wednesday. Number 3580F had swelling around the second incision on the left. Later, in the tech room, I told Irene and Brian about it and Brian said, "You didn't write it down did you?" I told him I had. He shook his head and told me I shouldn't have. I laughed at him and pointed out 'my schedule clearly read "ob 3619 - check sutures." He kept shaking his head and told me again I shouldn't have written it down.
When I did afternoon obs, I saw in addition to the swelling on 3580's second incision, number 4180 had swelling around the first incision on the left. During AM obs, 4180 'had blood coming from her left nostril.
Brian, who works in necropsy, asked Irene, Brian Crane, and I if all twelve of the Chiron monkeys had been operated on the same day. He groaned when we said they had.

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He said the sponges were really hard to find in the last group of monkeys who had the sponges implanted. Irene said, "They drift, don't they?" He agreed they really did.
[If the sponges drift around under the skin, how does the experiment work?] Gene told me the sponges mimic a tumour and the test material is supposed to reduce the growth of capillaries that feed tumours. Supposedly, the control group will be identifiable because at necropsy, the control group will have capillaries all around the sponges and the high dose groups will not have capillaries found around the sponges.
Gene told me this is a 'blind' study and no one knows which group is getting which dose or which is the control. He said even the sponsor who flew the test material in and will be reading the histology slides doesn't know. Brian told me Gene is wrong, that pharmacy knows, Gene knows, the sponsor knows, and he knows. Everyone knows. Gene gave me a copy of a scientific paper on the angioneses process, which is what this test is about.
Irene said the last time they did this study, it was "very hard to dose them because the injection has to be given in the sponge and the sponges move around a lot under the skin". [If the sponges drift around as much as everyone says, how can the experiment mimic a tumour and blood supply situation??]
I checked the observation book for 96-3314 and saw that James has had decreased activity and a hunched appearance for the last seven days. I went in to see him at 1he end of the day. Room 958 had been bled and dosed shortly before I went in. He was sitting in an upright foetal position with his head tucked down low. When he heard the door shut and all the other monkeys shrieking, he showed his teeth in a submissive, fearful way.
I've seen many of the other primates do that, but never James. He glanced at me when I knelt by the cage and then went back to staring at his feet. He shifted slightly so he was closer to the feeder hole. I reached in and stroked his back. He looked into my eyes and when he saw I could do nothing but stare back at him, he closed his eyes and curled up again.

1/26/97 Sunday HLS
I went in to see James today after dosing. He was sitting in exactly the same position as he was yesterday. He showed me that fearful submissive grin again and when I knelt by his cage he tucked his head to his chest and curled up in an upright foetal position. I rubbed his back through the feeder hole but I couldn't get him to look at me. His hands were curled up tightly and he clasped them around his ankles. It breaks my heart to see him like this. He's so frightened.
The cardio primates (Chiron) are very fearful now after the surgeries. Before the operation, there were always eight or nine of the twelve who would take treats from my hand. Now, only two trust me enough to get that close. Even the very friendly ones not only shrink back from me, they actually strike out. #3180 and 4180 both have swelling around one incision. #3081 has a length of suture-like material about two inches long coming from the first incision.

1/29/97 Wednesday HLS
A dog in room 908, study 3327 cut himself in the exercise cage because it is still broken.

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I helped dose the cardio (Chiron) primates. The test material is injected into the six sponges implanted in each monkey's back. The first primate I caught was number 4083 - -the one who lobbed as having a swollen area around the first incision over the weekend. Irene gasped when she saw blood spurting from her back and then said "Oh, it's so infected it must have burst open just from the pressure of being held. on the cage."
As I held the primate suspended on the cage door, she pressed on the wound and bloody pus spurted out and dripped all over the floor. The monkey winced and jumped each time she pressed on it. Brian asked Terry to come in and look at it. When she saw it she just said "Yeah?" [Like, what do you want me to do about it?] He asked if we should still dose her and she said, "Yes, go ahead." The primate jumped and winced each time Irene injected her back. When she got to the infected site she warned me to hold on tightly because she would jump - it would hurt her.
She was right, the primate jumped violently when the needle entered the sore, infected area. Irene wondered when the site had become infected. I told her I had obbed both this primate and 3083 as having infected sites over the weekend. Irene gave me a dirty look and said 4083 had been NE'd [recorded as not evident] on Monday. Then, she added, now it looks swollen, today. (as the blood and pus continued to ooze out down the primate's back and onto the floor.)
I looked at 3083's back and saw the second incision on the left looked much more swollen and some of the other sites seemed puffy as well. A vet request had been filled out for her. Several of the other primates had puffy areas on their backs around the incision sites. So many, I couldn't ask about all of them.
One of the primates in 96-3314 had to have part of his tail amputated today. Apparently someone injured it through improper handling causing the tail to break. Al did the surgery and Terry observed it.

*** THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT WAS ADDED AT A LATER DATE ***
[This primate had to have four different tail amputations because it wasn't healing properly and the stitches kept coming out. AL did the first three surgeries and Terry came in on a Saturday to do the fourth herself.] ** During the meeting in the tech room today Kathy announced that she had seen injuries on every one of the monkeys in room 958 yesterday - from broken tails to nearly- severed fingers, all caused from people handling them improperly during tests and procedures.
She said she might not know everything but she had worked there a long time and she thought she was pretty damn good at catching monkeys and when she tried to offer advice to other people trying to catch monkeys, she didn't appreciate getting attitude from them. She said her attitude toward catching monkeys changed when she broke one of their legs, and she knew some other people did when they saw tails lying on the floor.
Eleanor spoke up and affirmed that no one better be pulling on the monkey's tails when they were trying to catch them because they do stretch and stretch and will eventually just fall off. She asked Walter if he remembered how gross that was the time they had to bleach all those.
Eleanor and Kathy both said they used to have to spend at least five minutes talking nice to the monkeys before they tried to catch them. Kathy said these monkeys have been handled enough now they should be giving [you] an arm right away when you try to catch them - but with all the rough handling they weren't cooperating because they're being hurt. She said she knew she wouldn't be very cooperative if she knew she was going to be hurt each time someone did something with her.

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Note:-
(i)When there is reference to animals being 'sacrificed', this refers to them being killed.
(ii)'Obbed', 'Obbing' or 'Ob' which frequently occur in the diary refer to 'Observed', 'Observing' or 'Observe'.

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Both Eleanor and Kathy referenced previous studies in which monkeys "gave arm" as soon as you walked in the room.
Kathy said she found a primate cage in the extra room that did not have the water hooked up. She said she had not checked the water on Sunday when she cleaned. Both Eleanor and Kathy tried to figure out how long the four primates had been without water and they decided they had probably been without it since a week ago, Wednesday, when there was a cage change. Kathy said she wouldn't have checked the water lines this time either, but she noticed all four of the monkeys trying to scoop water from the pan underneath the cage floor as she cleaned.
Tonight I helped Brian, Yimmer, and Dilip with ECG's in room 958, study 3314. The primates wince and jump when the metal alligator clips are pinched onto their delicate skin and it's obvious by the way they jump that it hurts if the clip isn't opened completely when removed. If any hair is pulled with it they really jump and scream. Brian pulled all the clips off fast, not taking any time to ease them off, and told Dilip he was showing me how I was supposed to be taking them off. The clips leave marks and bruises on their skin and sometimes you can see where the clips go by where the marks are from the last time tl.1ey had ECG's done.
Dilip was pointing out various cuts and abrasions on the primates and trying to record them in the ob book. Brian chastised him for that and waved away his concern. One of the primates in group five had such a deep cut in between his toes, it looked like one of his toes might fall off. Some of the primates were bleeding from their mouths after being jammed against the cage door. I saw one primate had a bloody hole in her mouth where a tooth used to be. When one primate was screaming at being strapped down and having the clips pinched on, Dilip held the electrode lotion by his mouth and squeezed drops of lotion all around his mouth until finally a glob of it landed in his mouth. Then he said to the monkey "... chew on that and keep quiet."
James flashed his submissive grin throughout the tie-down procedure and once strapped down he lay quietly and stared off into space, as if he weren't really there. His blood pressure and heart rate values were considerably lower than the other primates'.

1/30/97 Thursday HLS
I cleaned the extra primate colony in room 947. I saw on the enrichment records they have yet to receive any video enrichment.
I cleaned room 909, study 3327 - American Cyananide. I saw that across the hall, whoever was cleaning room 908 had a cage pulled in front of the window (a well-known cleaning trick if you don't want anyone to see how you're cleaning - like if you're not actually removing the animals from their cages...). By the time I finished cleaning the six cages in room 909, whoever cleaned 908 was finished and gone.
I cleaned room 904, one of three rooms in A- 78 study 3335. Dog number SO14M has a very swollen toe on his right front foot. (photos). He holds it up when he walks and sometimes when he just stands.

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The dogs in study 96-3323 had blood taken this morning and ECG's this afternoon. I hope all this pain-filled attention means the end is near for them. All the dogs in this room are males - and - are nearly 8 months old. They are so big now. And so tired of being locked in tiny cage's, They're so rowdy, even the dogs in the top row of cages will jump out of the cage when the door is opened. I saw in the ob book, number 3217M was favouring his right front leg since?? Rachel obbed the room that morning - Henry had cleaned the day before.
I don't know if the dog jumped or if Henry slammed his leg in the cage door. Either is a definite possibility since I've seen Henry on several occasions slamming cage doors on dogs and grabbing them by the leg to lift them. I've also had this particular dog and several others in this room leap excitedly into midair - sometimes managing to catch them before they hit the ground and sometimes only being able to wince on hitting he floor running,
Or, maybe it happened in the exercise cages. They're all broken with some of the metal slats that make up the floor missing and broken, bent down, leaving dangerous holes with jagged edges. On several occasions I've had to manually lift a dog's leg out of the hole before lifting him out of the cage. Most cleaners just grab the dogs and drag them out. If the dog's leg had fallen through the missing slats an injury will surely result. Or maybe it happened when one of the faulty, broken latches on the exercise cages gave way and the dogs accidentally tumbled out. I've seen that happen too.
I saw Kevin coming down the hall with a dog standing on the top of a three tiered rolling cart. When they got closer, I could see Kevin had hold of two of the dogs legs. He was walking at a normal pace. The dog was from 3323 and he was taking him for an ECG. I've never seen anyone transport a dog on a rolling cart for an ECG. I'll check the protocol and SOP's to see if that's the proper way to transport an animal.
Irene was complaining to me that she was still addressing memos from her study in May. Her big complaint was that people were too specific in memos. One of the examples she gave was the test material had to be flushed after oral gavage administration. The SOP says use approximately one ML or flush. Techs wrote they used two mls or flush, etc. when writing memos to explain lung shots that killed animals.

2/1/97 Saturday HLS
Dog number 8113 in room 908, study 3327, cut his leg in the exercise cage. In study 3335, dog number 8014M still has a bad cage sore on his front paw. A vet request was written to soak his foot in Betadine. The Betadine was left in an open food bowl in the sink next to the unicide containers. In the tech room, they were talking about Terry popping the cyst when she examined it. Just cutting it open right there in the room. Apparently a lot of pus ran out when she did it.

2/5/97 Wednesday HLS I cleaned rooms 917 and 918, study 3337. There are now three rooms of dogs for this study - 70 in all.
Held primates for dosing in 3619. The test material is injected in the sponges implanted in their backs. They wince and jump each time the needle enters their skin. Some of the incisions are still very infected.

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Yao and I changed the cages in 3619. One of the primates got loose later in the day. Yao caught it with a catchpole. While we were changing cages, Terry came in to look at 4083's back. The first incision on the left is extremely infected. Before we dosed, AI and Irene drained so much blood and pus from it there was a pool of it on the floor under the primate.
Less than two hours later, when Terry looked at it, it had already refilled with blood and pus and she drained it again. She said as long as it was open and draining it's ok and no treatment is required. We can continue to dose it. The technicians are concerned the sponge may pop out of the opening when the pus runs out.
Terry asked Yao to catch 4083 so she could look at her. Yao had' a hard time getting the monkey on the door of the cage, and in the process of grabbing and struggling, the primate tore a big piece of Yao's glove off. It was such a stressful capture at one point Terry turned to me and asked if I was certified to catch. (I think she wanted me to try because Yao was not doing a good job - it was very chaotic.) I told her "They've been having me catch them for dosing and tests but I'm not certified." Then she said, "This is why I want all the monkeys to wear collars." [The collars she referred to are hard plastic collars that lock around the animal's neck.
The sides of the collar extend out several inches so the primate can be snared with a long hooked pole and dragged to the front of the cage. The primates would have to wear these collars 24 hours a day, every day they were at the lab. Not only would it not necessarily minimize injury it would create a whole new set of problems including increased entrapment in the cages, constant misery for the primates, potential for serious injury and even death if the collars are not routinely checked for size and comfort. With the careless attitude of the employees at HLS this would almost certainly be a problem.
I came back to help with ECG's, covering for Irene? who was sick. Yimmer and Dilip took turns running the ECG machine and holding monkeys, Michael from rodent tox did blood pressures and they told me to catch primates. I told them I was just learning how to catch and they told me that's still what I should do. Normally when I help with ECG's I run the blood pressure machines because I've been certified to do that. Even though, Irene and Al have both told me the way I've been trained to do it is not the way it should be done.

2/6/97 Thursday HLS
I went with Stephanie to get the dose material for 3314 (P&G) from pharmacy. Both Kathy and Stephanie told me it can't be picked up until right before dosing because it has to be refrigerated. They both said really it's supposed to be kept much colder, but they don't like to put that cold a substance into the animal's stomachs.
On the way to the pharmacy (video), Stephanie told me Terry may take one of the group four females off test. This monkey has a huge abscess on her leg that won't heal. She told me the cut was caused initially from pulling her through the feeder hole for bloods. It won't heal or scab over and the vet thinks there is anaerobic bacteria present eating away at the flesh. It's such a bad wound it's almost down to the bone now. I told her I thought she told me the test material is a decongestant. She said it is but the test material given at high doses causes the veins and arteries to shrink, limiting blood flow. Since blood carries oxygen, the wound isn't getting what it needs to start to heal and the bacteria are thriving.

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She said the vet compared the wound to a bedsore said it was similar to a wound a diabetic person gets that won't heal because of the blood flow.
Caught primates for dosing in 3314 (P&G). Kathy and Stephanie dosed. Lynn, George and I caught. Stephanie and Lynn trained me to catch and hold the same way Irene taught me in 3619. The primate is brought forward by the false back and squeezed tightly to the front of the cage. Then you grab any part of the money you can get a hold of without getting bit. Usually the primates will hide in the upper corner where the caging spokes are tighter and they can't be grabbed at. If they do that, the false back is released and as they scurry back to safety, the techs quickly jam it forward again trying to squeeze the monkey into a better position. Again, some of the primates reluctantly gave arm, but would struggle once they were caught. Many of the primates I held had bloody mouths from struggling.
When the tech is ready with the dosing material, the primate is held by one arm in the centre of the door, while it's swung open. The primate is dragged down the door, until the bottom of the cage door is right under his armpit. Downward pressure is put on the to be held. The technician who's dosing secures the primate's head with one hand and forces the dosing tube up the primate's nose and down into the stomach.
Stephanie was very cautious before dosing. Every time she dosed a primate I was holding, she drew back on the syringe, several times if she had to, until she saw stomach contents. Then she would push the plunger and force the pale pink liquid into the primate's stomach. Kathy dosed so quickly, I don't ever remember seeing stomach contents before she dosed. The primate's grimace and wince as the dosing tube passes through their nose. After dosing, they shake their heads violently and jump around.
When we were through dosing, we had to capture an escaped primate in room 957. Lynn, Stephanie, Kathy and I chased the exhausted and scared primate around for nearly 40 minutes. He jumped from cage top to cage top until finally ending up on the floor where Lynn secured him with leather gloved hands. Stephanie and Kathy both had catchpoles and in the beginning were cautious about not pulling if the loop was around the monkey's neck. After several minutes of near misses, they were pulling any time they got part of the primate close to the loop.

2/8/97 Saturday HLS
-2484,2499,3327 -908,3335,3093, - 947,3323
There is a memo on the bulletin board reminding techs two primates in study 3314 need daily medical treatment as per vet request.
One of the group four rats has red lesions around his eye. There was blood smeared in the corner of his cage. I obbed it and told Brian about it. He said he didn't think it was a big deal.

2/9/97 Sunday HLS
The group four rat with the sores around his eye looks worse and I noticed one of the other group four rats has the same thing starting. There is blood in both their cages. I told Brian about it and he asked Danny to look at them. Danny told me it was nothing to worry about.

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He said "it's just chromodacryorrhea" and the rats get it all the time. He said it happens when they start to have teeth problems. He was surprised to see it in this room because the rats are so young they shouldn't have tooth problems yet. He said don't ever record it in daily obs, it should be noted in the weekly physical. He said this Union Carbide rat study 2484 is a sister study to one he's doing in rodent tox with mice, same company, same test material.
The new puppies are still so shy. There are a lot of them who have been at Huntingdon for several weeks and they still shrink back when the cage door opens. When I comment on their fearfulness, Nick and some of the other techs tell me they're new and still getting settled in. Dilip came into the tech room and told us one of the extra primates had gotten his hand stuck in the cage flooring. Rachel asked if he had tried lubing him.
Dilip motioned with his hands the size of the stuck hand was approximately the size of an orange and the floor would need to be cut. Rachel, Dilip and I went to the extra colony and on the way to the stuck primate's cage, Rachel said, "That one's stuck, too." She pointed to another female primate across the room. Her hand was stuck midway up her forearm and her hand and forearm were swollen to twice their normal size.
When I looked at the primate Dilip told us about I was amazed at what I saw. The primate was face down against the cage floor. Her entire arm, up to her armpit, was trapped on the other side of the cage. I expected her hand to be swollen, but her whole arm was swollen. It was at least three times its normal size - it looked even bigger than her leg. The skin on her hand was shiny from being stretched so tightly because of the swelling.
Rachel and Dilip tried banging on the cages and yelling as if that would encourage the monkeys to get their own arms out. The monkeys screamed and shrieked in terror and pain, but obviously couldn't free their arms.
Rachel opened the cage doors and tried pulling and twisting on the primate's arms. The monkeys continued to scream and cry. I Rachel gave each primate an injection of ketaset and the cages were moved to the floor. Dilip got the bolt cutters from the guard station.
The primate who was stuck up to her armpit was injected first. When she started getting relaxed they tipped her cage over so she was hanging from her trapped arm. I reached in and tried to support the weight of her body so the metal cage wouldn't cut her arm. Rachel told me to let go of her. Her arm was so swollen, Dilip could hardly get the tip of the bolt cutters in between the arm and the cage. Eventually they were able to cut apart the cage and free her arm. The arm was so big they had to cut through two of the squares of caging before there was a larger enough opening for the arm to squeeze through.
Her arm was raw from the caging and bruises were already starting to appear. Dilip told me she probably been stuck since the night before. The other primate was cut loose from the cage in the same way. Her hand wasn't as large and only one square of caging had to be cut for her hand to squeeze through.

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I went in to room 958 to see James. As soon as I kneeled in front of his cage he came to the cage door and started grooming me. He stroked my eyebrows and my hair and he lightly touched my forehead.
There are rabbits and guinea pigs in F-wing. In one room Pfizer consumer and Monsanto both have studies going on. The rabbits in both studies have shaved and marked areas on their backs. Some of the rabbits are wearing hard plastic Elizabethan collars and some are wrapped with adhesive tape. I think they call this 'damming' when the animals are wrapped with gauze and tape after test material is applied. When the tape and test material is removed it's called 'undamming'. Some of the rabbits looked like their skin was red and irritated.

2/12/97 Wednesday HLS
Today cardio used five female dogs from the extra colony for a study Magainin Pharmaceutical is running. We implanted femoral catheters in them and hooked them up to infusion pumps. They will be dosed via infusion for a 24-hour period next Wednesday. They will have a two-week recovery period before they are sacrificed on March 5th.
Gene told me Magainin has developed a compound to fight viruses, namely AIDS. It is derived from shark livers and either this compound or another they make also uses something found on frog's backs. Magainin has contracted four studies with us. Two on dogs and two on rats. He said they only have a limited amount of this compound so requested we rise very small dogs and very small rats. This study is a range finding study to determine toxicity.
Gene and I prepped the dogs for surgery. Gene catheterised them with an abo-cath, using his own method. He slices open the dog's skin with a large needle first, so the tip of the catheter isn't damaged going through the dog's thick skin. He scrapes and cuts until he sees blood. The sound of it is nauseating. (video)
He used Propofil to anaesthetise them prior to hooking them up to isoflurane. The dogs seemed to go down much quicker and stay down throughout the surgery better. Gene primed the anaesthesia machines before surgery and Irene thought this made a difference. When I told Terry this, she said, "They don't market anaesthetics that don't work. If you have animals that are waking up it's hot the drug it's the person running the anaesthesia."
Before we prepped the last two dogs, Gene told me we would be a little short on propofil for the last dog. He said we would be about .1ml's short because the bottle was empty and it didn't pay to open a new bottle since you can't save it once it's open. He told me we would really have to work fast to get the dog intubated and on isoflurane as quickly as possible.
Dog number 1384 went wild as soon as Gene tried to clip the hair off her leg. She was struggling, biting and snapping. Three of us tried to hold her down and she was so freaked out Gene couldn't even hold her foot for a second. Irene muzzled her and both she and Brian tried to hold her but neither could. Gene gave her an injection of acepromezine and we prepped the next dog while it took effect.

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Gene took me aside as we got the next dog on the counter and reminded me this was the dog weld be short of propofil on. He said it so only I could hear, and made a point of telling Lisa and Irene to step back, he wanted me to help him with the dog. After the propofil was administered and the dog was on her back, I reached for her tongue so Gene could intubate her. Her mouth snapped down on my fingers because she was so light.
Number 1384 was still wild after about 20 minutes. It was as if she didn't even have a sedative. She freaked out as soon as she was put on the counter. She was twisting and biting at whatever she could reach. Irene, Lisa and I all held her down while Gene masked her down with isoflurane. She was so scared she expressed her anal glands. She screamed and cried and struggled until finally the iso started working. (video)
Lisa, who works as a tech in large animals and is cross training in cardio, recovered the dogs, helping to get them in their jackets and tethers, attaching them to the swivels and infusion pumps in the cages.
She stayed with them until they were fully awake - I've never seen anyone do that with other surgeries we've done. She said the second dog woke up fine but when she tried to move she cried.
Rodney came in to see the dogs set up. He had been scheduled to help out but didn't for some reason. He asked Gene what kind of analgesics we gave them and when. Gene told him we didn't give them an analgesic because it wasn't necessary. Rodney seemed surprised. He's worked at another company recently and was comparing techniques and drug dosages with Irene.
The primates in study 3619 were sacrificed today. Al came into surgery and told Gene necropsy was having trouble finding the sponges and were calling the sponsor.
I went to the necropsy room after surgery and watched Brian and Jim finish the necropsy of one of the group four primates. The primate was split wide open in a pool of blood. I could still see her heart beating. Brian told me the sponges were very hard to find, they had moved around a lot. He said they couldn't have made them any harder to find, the sponges were the same colour as the fat layer, sort of a fleshy coloured pale pink-tan colour. I told them the sponges had started out bright pink.
They retrieved most of what they thought were the sponges from that primate and then Jim cut all the skin from the primate's back and folded it into a zip lock baggie. He said the sponsor had suggested they do that if they weren't sure about the sponges. I asked them if they thought the injections of test material we'd been giving them had reached any of the sponges since they'd drifted so much. Brian said probably not, if we went by the incisions.
Al brought in the next primate. He had given the primate an injection of Xyla-ject. He brought her in wrapped up like a baby - in a garbage can liner, with just her head sticking out. They put her on the wet and bloody necropsy table. Brian picked up his razor knife and grabbed a chunk of hair on her upper arm lifting the skin up. Then he began hacking at the arm. His razor was dull and he took several swipes before removing a chunk of flesh the size of a lemon. I was so shocked I couldn't even ask what he was doing - the primate was still very much alive !! While Jim approached with sodium pentobarbital, Brian drummed his fingers on the primate's mouth making noises.

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Jim injected the drug into the primate's very exposed vein while Brian held it off. I asked if that was the way they always did it. Brian told me "Yeah, we're lazy." Jim said "That's why Terry makes us use xylazine now. "We used to just use ketamine, but she put a stop to that."
They cut the primate's chest open and took' a blood sample before retrieving the sponges. While Jim did that, Brian wrote his initials in the blood on the table. They were able to retrieve all six sponges. This was a group one monkey and they said they were able to get all the sponges out of those.
I told Brian Crane about the primate necropsies I watched. I told him about the colour of the sponges and how they had drifted. I asked about the possibility of any of the test material being any where near the sponges. He shrugged and said "Probably not. The sponsor is looking for an animal model to conduct this study on and I guess maybe monkey's aren't it."

2/13/97 Thursday HLS
Irene said dog number 1384 had gotten the tether twisted in the bottom of the cage and flipped around so much the tether broke. The long metal tube is made of coiled metal. It got caught close to where the catheter comes out of the dog's back leaving sharp metal shards. She said the dog had rolled around so much the plastic catheter tubing was entwined in the sharp edges of the metal coils. She said it was a miracle the catheter didn't get cut causing the dog to bleed to death. She said when she tried to fix the catheter the dog tried to bite her.
I helped hold the puppies in study 3337 for bloods. About 20 of the 70 dogs needed two or more people to hold them down. These dogs howled and screamed and some tried to bite. Eleanor in particular had several dogs react this way. I don't know if it's her bleeding technique that causes it to be more painful.
Irene, Yao and I did ECG's on the six surgery dogs. They were forced to lie on their right side - the same side the catheter tether is on.
Eleanor, Rachel, Kevin and Arpad (a study director who, according to Irene, received a veterinary degree from a foreign country, she thought it was Hungary. Irene also told me she didn't think he'd ever been a practicing veterinarian, that he'd just gone into research right away.) We're conducting a pilot study for 3337, trying to find a dose range. Irene told me it's an LD/50 test where half of the animals will die from the dose material. The test material is Lidocaine and Dextromethorphane. There will be seven groups of dogs getting the test material nasally, and an eighth group getting it IV. The test material will be administered over a period of minutes so the dogs have to be restrained in slings while they're dosed.
I walked by the room and saw Eleanor and Rachel tightening the restraining ropes on the dog's legs. He was hanging in the sling, feet kicking in the air. I went back just a few minutes later to watch the dosing and saw Eleanor tying up a garbage bag containing the dead dog (number 1313 from the extra colony).

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She said they administered the dose material and the dog had a very bad reaction to it that lasted a couple of minutes. He was howling and crying and turned red. Then he went into convulsions for about ten minutes. They sacrificed him after ten minutes of convulsing. Kevin went into the extra colony and got another dog, number 1339. He was tied into the sling and Eleanor, Kevin and Arpad tried to figure out the proper dose.
The dog went crazy in the sling howling and struggling. They told me to keep him busy by petting him. Eleanor put a butterfly in his arm and started the dose, via syringe pump. Within just a few seconds the dog was yelping and screaming and frantically trying to get out of the sling - I think his struggles were involuntary - he was just freaking out from the test material. He was biting and snapping.
His muzzle and eyes turned bright red. His face swelled up. His anal glands let loose. He urinated and defecated. His breathing was rapid and shallow and then raspy. Shortly after the dose was administered - over a two-minute period - the dog appeared to be in a stupor. His eyes were glassy and his head went limp. After several minutes of this comatose like behaviour he started to wag his tail slightly. Eventually he was moved to the floor and deemed good enough to be returned to his cage.
As we called out to Kevin the reactions we were seeing so he could record them, someone would always add "just like the other dog". Arpad left prior to the dog's recovery to relate the incident to the sponsor and get the next dose level. Eleanor told him she thought this level was way too high and she didn't want to have to deal with this for 30 days of dosing. She said, "We can't stand around and wait for the dogs to recover from this."
Eleanor stayed with the dog for a while after everyone else left. She told me she hates to see the dogs like this. She also said she hates to see the dogs after surgery .She hates to see them in the jackets and all hooked up.
Arpad said he thought the severe reaction was from the Lidocaine. He said the Dextromethorphane is used in cough syrups and is supposed to make the Lidocaine last longer. Eleanor asked him if this was supposed to be a drug used for migraine headaches and Arpad told her it was.
The next dog, number 1342, (Rachel said she recognized him from her study 3323 and called him "scabby head" - he had been exempted from study because he had scabs on his head) was given the same dose over a ten-minute period instead of a two-minute period. When the test material entered his body, it took just a few seconds to produce the same violent reaction. He yelped and screamed and bit at anything he could reach. He bit several holes in the sling table and it took four of us to hold him down.
His face swelled up but he didn't get as red as the previous dog. His reaction was just as severe as the other .dog I saw but he didn't go through a comatose state. His eyes got glassy and he relaxed his head for a short time. When he was put on the floor he was much more active than the previous dog.
Arpad said he thought the violent reaction was just the excitatory stage anaesthetics produce. He left to call the sponsor and Eleanor asked if we were through. He looked at his watch and saw it was close to 4:00 and said he didn't think we could do much more.

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Eleanor told him she thought we should try again because the dose was still too high. She said again she didn't want to go through this every day.
Eleanor told me she's always been told the FDA likes it if something's tested at thirty times the recommended dose. It's more likely to get approved if it's tested at a severely high dosage to prove toxicity.

2/19/97 Wednesday HLS
Rodney practiced femoral artery catheter surgeries on rats today. I watched him for a few minutes and noticed the balloon on the end of the anaesthesia set-up wasn't moving. The rat looked very pale and I didn't see any respiration. I called Al over and asked him what it means when the balloon's not moving. He said it means the animal's not breathing. He tried to revive her by blowing into a syringe tube placed over the rat's nose. It didn't work and Rodney continued the surgery.
Al taught me how to bleed a rat via the retro-orbital sinus. A glass pipette is broken and the smooth side is inserted into the animal's eye socket. The rat's eyeball pressed completely into the socket as the pipette entered. He told me to twist the glass tube and apply pressure at the same time. After pushing the glass tube deep into the eye socket and twisting three times, I felt something break and blood came rushing out of the pipette. Al told me to tip the rat upside down and let the blood flow out.
After the pipette is removed blood fills the eye cavity and runs down the rat's face. Al put gauze over the eye and applied pressure. A few minutes later he killed the rat by cervical dislocation. The animal I had to do this on was deeply anaesthetised with isoflurane, but normally this procedure is done on animals only lightly anaesthetised with Co2. Usually animals have this done when they're 'on-test', often more than just once, and they're not sacrificed after they have to suffer with the pain.

2/20/97 Thursday HLS
When I went in to look at the dogs (97-3622), Irene told me right away she thought the group five dog was showing neurological signs. (video)
The infusion pump for the group two dog was beeping and flashing a message showing occlusion on the dog's side of the pump. After several attempts at fixing it, Irene and Al finally decided at about 10:00, the catheter was twisted way down at the looped area near the leg - the part that's attached with stitches to the muscle layer of the dog. The infusion pump operated when the dog was restrained on her side with her leg stretched out.
Several of us took turns holding the dog in that position until dosing was finished - about 2: 15 that afternoon. Gene told me about how studies are run, how reports are written and how companies get their drugs and products approved. Gene told me statistics are very vulnerable to manipulation. A true scientist selects the statistics they'll use to support their findings then they'll gather the data. A true scientist really has no need for GLP because they're interested in science (check video) and don't need the documentation. But what happens more often is the data is collected then statistics are found that will support their findings.
I said that didn't make sense because the reason tests are done are for C. Y. A and you'd want to find the truth about the substance.

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Gene said "OK, you're a PHn running a group and your job depends on getting one new drug to INn status each quarter. Your job depends on it. You may try out a few different statistical formulas to support your findings to get that drug approved." Irene chimed in "Money. Once money enters the picture." Gene agreed, money changes everything and corrupts the process.
Gene said Huntingdon is using outdated practices that have been around since the 60's and it's time to move forward and progress. (video for verbatim quote) About new employees, Irene said, "They write up everything and they think we're so cold. I know you saw that but is it necessary to write that down? Do you think it's a clinical sign from what they're getting...".
The high dosage dog started retching about 12:30- 1:00. She had dry heaves so badly she was literally screaming from the pain of them. I saw her drag herself to her feet and lean forward. The retching was so loud it could be heard down the hall. After a bout of heaving, she collapsed, exhausted from the effort. I asked Rodney what the yelping noise was at the end of the bout of dry heaves. He said, "It's from the pain. You know yourself how painful it is to retch like that and not get anything up." (check video for verbatim quote.)
I asked Irene if she had retched when the sponsors were in the room. She said "Of course not." The group five dog's retching continued throughout the afternoon. Her screams were heard down the hall.
I couldn't believe what I saw when the sponsors were in the room. I saw two of the sponsors, stop in front of the dogs' cages and hold the back of their hand out for the dog to sniff. They would also stop in front of the cages and whistle at a dog to get her attention. These dogs have lived their entire lives in tiny cages - they don't know whistling. They've never been taught whistling means come back home, come back from your fun romp in the woods, come - get in the car so we can go home. These beagles 'purpose bred for laboratory study' are conditioned from birth to forgive abuse. They are bred dumb and friendly. They receive intensive socialization only at key points when they're puppies just so they'll crave human touch no matter how cruel it may be. They are not taught to respond to whistle commands. The sponsors were asking questions about a dog's normal position when lying down - "...do they usually curl their legs up?"
I was enraged at these "scientists'" ignorance. How dare they be so oblivious to their victims? How can they have no concept of these "living test systems" they poison and torture in the name of science? To the sponsor each study is just about money and fame, they know nothing about the misery their wonder-drugs cause, nor do they care. As long as they can "manipulate [those] statistics" to get drug approval and a big fat paycheck, the animals will never receive the right to a pain-free life of freedom.
When Brian tied the dog's catheters off after dosing, he yanked them so hard the dogs' hind leg, where the catheter is attached to the inner muscle layer with stitches, literally was jerked up and off the table. Irene admonished him for pulling so hard and for pulling it out so far before tying it and dropping it back in. The cut and knotted tubing is contaminated by the tech's hands and put back under the dog's skin. Once I saw a huge chunk of hair stuck to the tubing as it was jammed back under the dog's skin.

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When he removed the very sick group five dog's jacket and tied the catheter, he couldn't get the tubing to go back in. The knotted end was pulled so tightly, the dog's skin was wrinkled up between her hind leg and the knot lodged outside the partially healed incision in her back. Brian grabbed handful's of skin at the dog's neck and back and lifted her roughly off the table, up and down twice to shake the jacket out from under her legs.
He could have easily lifted one leg at a time and removed the jacket. During the bouncing the catheter knot pulled through the scabbed over incision. Irene was shocked at his rough handling and even though they're friends she couldn't help but say "Brian!! The dog's sick!" He sheepishly muttered he was just trying to get the catheter back in.
Two of the dogs really struggled during blood collection. They screamed and cried, the sound muffled by the technician's hand around the dog's mouth. Brian had to hold one of the dogs because she struggled so much. He called her a "Bitch" twice and Irene called her a "Bitch" once. They both used the term scathingly in a derogatory manner, not in the academic sense or a female dog. Brian complained throughout one five-minute blood collection that his arm was hurting him from holding the dog down; I could hardly hear what he said over the dog's screams.
Irene and Brian told Rodney stories about finding racks or rats and mice dead after they were mistakenly left in their cages and put through the automatic cage wash machine. Brian told him about a room of rats left in C-wing and forgotten about. No one fed them or anything and they were found a couple or weeks later during room checks - dead, or course. He said it didn't happen that long ago. Irene said Al mistakenly killed a whole room of rats once because he thought they said, "Go kill them" instead of what they really said. She said they were off test but they were going to be used in another study.
Rodney was doing more practice surgeries on rats. Gene came in and turned the isoflurane down in the chamber, telling Rodney it was much too high. Rodney told him Al had adjusted it and. Gene told him it didn't matter, it was his responsibility to monitor it - he's the surgeon - it's his animal.
Irene was talking about a person in the paper who was caught torturing dogs. Brian said he'd rather have him do that to dogs than to grab someone's child.
When Rodney and I went to the extra rodent colony to get rats for practice surgeries. The woman who was cleaning the room pointed out a female rat whose teeth were so long she could no longer drink water. There is a hand written note on her cage card that reads, "Please give me a drink". The woman said, "I don't know why they bothered to write that, it'll just die anyway." When I asked what it meant, she said, "It's teeth are too long to drink, I guess they have to take it over to nozzle and give it a drink." She shrugged as she told me, she said she didn't really know much about it. Apparently she hadn't given the thirsty rat a drink. I asked why they didn't sacrificed her, since it seems like a lot of trouble water her that way. I looked at Rodney and said we needed some rats for practice. He picked four other rats and didn't say anything more about it.
Irene told 'me Arpad used to be a veterinarian. He went to vet school in another country but he never really practiced, he just went into research right away. She said he's supposed to be the one to ask if Terry's not on site, but she wondered how much he knew since he'd been to school so long ago and never really practiced.

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Arpad, Eleanor and Rachel were in the extra canine colony testing the 3337 nasal dose on one of the male dogs. Rachel said he didn't get too sick from it.

3/8/97 Saturday HLS
I dosed study 97-3335, the Ritalin study, with Irene. The dogs all receive a variety of tablets. The study is a "capsule dose" so the tablets are manually shoved down the puppies' throats. When their cage doors open, many of them try to hide their heads under the feed-bowl shelves, reluctant to be dragged forward and dosed. A couple of them are so scared they cower in the back corner of their cage.
One of the dogs in group seven, number 7736F, always has a bad reaction to the test material. She salivates excessively - so much there is a large puddle of saliva pooled on the floor in front of her cage (it's very slippery, gooey and sticky - definitely saliva not water) Her ears are even drenched in saliva and her face dripping with it. I've noticed this when I've cleaned the room an hour or two after dosing. I told Cesair, Dilip and two other techs about it in the tech room one day suggesting they come and look at her. Dilip asked if it was a female in group seven and then told me she always does that and not to worry about it.
When I cleaned I saw three of the four dogs in group four had capsules in the bottom of their cages. Test material that was not adequately delivered to the dogs. Irene dosed that group. I didn't clean the other room in the study so I don't know if there were un- administered tablets in those cages.
It's very common to find capsules and pills in the bottom of the cages in a capsule dose study. The techs are careless and the dogs become very good at coughing the pills up once the technician walks away. Capsule dosing is a very inaccurate method that can only produce poor quality data.
I dosed with Irene in study 96-3323, the Zonagen Pharmacy oral gavage study. The test material is Phentolamine mesylate. Irene told me to try and dose the group one control dogs while she held them. She said they only get distilled water, that way they can tell if dogs in the study have, for instance, a problem with their throats at necropsy, they'll know if it's dose related - from the gavage, if they all have it including the control group, or from the test material if the control dogs don't have it.
I've been trained by Kathy, Justin, Lynn, and Kevin to signal the doser with an affirmative nod or sound (if it can be heard above the barking in the room), if I feel the gavage tube go down the dog's esophagus. If I don't feel the tube pass between my fingers on the dog's throat the tube may be in the trachea instead and the doser should reinsert the tube. Irene told me if she didn't say anything that means it's OK and I should go ahead and push the liquid into the dog. This doesn't make any sense. To say nothing may mean it's too late once the test material administration begins. I've been told it doesn't take much liquid in the lungs to cause death from a "lung shot."
The dosing tube has to pass through two or three sphincters in the throat and oesophagus to reach the stomach. Irene told me the dogs have to swallow for the tube to pass. It was horrible to dose and have to jam and jam until the tube passed down the dog's throat. Some of the dogs are so big they have over 70 mls of fluid pumped into their stomachs. Irene dosed groups two, three and four while I held.

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She had to repeatedly jam the tube in the dog's throats until it eventually went down!
Each of the four dose groups has a separate gavage tube and syringe. There are six dogs in each dose group and each one of the six uses the same tube as the others in his group. Irene pre-moistened the tube for the first dog in each group saying she felt sorry for the first dog having to have a dry tube shoved in. She said all the others get the benefit of other dogs' saliva to help lubricate it. She is the only person I've ever seen do this before gavage dosing.
Dog number 3216 had a bowel movement immediately after dosing. He salivated and foamed at the mouth. He retched and eventually vomited clear, foamy liquid. He lay down in the back of his cage and stayed there for a long time. While she prepared the next dose, Irene worried he might have gotten a lung shot and then said he'd have dropped over already if he had. Dog number 3220 is very thin. Immediately after dosing, watery yellow diarrhoea squirted uncontrollably from his rectum. He foamed at the mouth and salivated. He wretched and eventually vomited clear foamy liquid just like 3216.
For the next fifteen minutes he continued having watery bowel movements. Irene pointed out it looked like he was prolapsing at one point - it looked like his rectum was turning inside out. Irene said he looks like a greyhound and must have a fast metabolism - the test material must hit him faster than the other dogs. When we left the room, both 3216 and 3220 were lying in the back of their cages. We had a lot of trouble dosing dog number 4219. He really fought once the tube was in the back of his mouth. He screamed and yelped and even tried biting at us. We tried holding him in the air, on the ground, and in his cage, but he would not allow the tube to be shoved down his throat.
Finally, Irene asked Yimmer to come in and help. We took the dog into an empty room across the hall. Yimmer knew right away which dog was giving us trouble. He said the day before it took ten people to dose that dog. Everyone had to help hold him down so the person dosing could get the tube in. First, Yimmer tried holding him alone while Irene dosed. The Jog still fought and screamed. I tried to help hold him and Irene struggled to get the tube near the dog's mouth. Finally, after several attempts, Irene and I held the dog in the air and Yimmer forced the tube down his throat.
Rachel told me it's just been lately that 4219's been fighting it. He used to be really good. She said "Somebody's done something to him because he sure hates it now." I can't help but think she's right after witnessing the rough handling and sloppy techniques used by the employees at Huntingdon. I feel so bad for that dog. He is so nice and sweet until the tube comes near him, then he just freaks out. I think his throat might be sore and he should not be dosed until it heals. Irene told Yimmer "He knows you mean business when you dose. Guys are better at it because the dogs know they can't get away with stuff with you."
I went in several times in the two hours after dosing to check on the dogs. Both dogs stayed in the back of their cages most of the time, not even responding to me when I went in. Once, 3220 was sitting near the door of the cage salivating excessively. He looked sick and miserable. I told Irene about it and she said the test material must have hit him harder than the others. Rachel said "Every once in a while there's a dog in there that will get sick after dosing for a few days and then they'll be fine again. Like maybe they're not feeling well in general, before dosing."

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At the end of the day, both dogs seemed ok and I told Irene, telling her not to worry. I asked if she'd been in to check on them. She said "No, not since we dosed."
I held primates for dosing in 3314. Many of the primates reluctantly give arm when given the opportunity. Some of them jump wildly around the cage, striking out in rage and fear until the hand they're striking with is eventually captured. Several of the primate's still bleed from the mouth after being caught. Two of the primates I held had sores on their hands from previous captures.
I went into the extra rodent colony and saw the rat with the hand written request on his cage card to "Please give me a drink" is still alive. She immediately came to the front of the cage when she saw me, just like two weeks ago when I last saw her. I'm not sure why Terry, the veterinarian, hasn't been notified about euthanasing her or cutting her teeth. Why hasn't she noticed it in physicals? I'm not sure how often, if ever, the extra rodents are examined but apparently it's not often enough.
I was cleaning the extra primate colony in room 920 when I heard a dog screaming wildly. Dilip, George and Yimmer were dosing study 3337, the lidocaine study and that's where the screaming was coming from. During the pilot study, the dogs were put in slings to IV dose them and they had violent reactions that sounded similar to the screams I heard today.

3/9/97 Sunday HLS
I watched Rachel, Stephanie and Lisa IV dose group eight dogs in study 3337. There are eight dogs in group eight. They are brought in three at a time, and then two, into an empty room and tied into slings. All four of the dog's legs are strapped securely to the cart the sling is hung on. A needle is inserted into one leg and the dose is administered with a syringe pump for ten minutes. The dogs vocalize, salivate, turn red, bite at the cart and eventually slump over - completely out of it.
I dosed with Lynn in 97-3335, the Ritalin study. Later, when I cleaned I found tablets in the bottom of two cages in one room. I didn't clean the other room in the study .so I don't know if there were un- administered tablets in those cages.
In study 3323 Lynn dosed and I held. Kevin came in to help us dose 4219. Lynn had asked him beforehand because she knew we'd have problems getting the tube in his throat. She told me she walked by the room on Friday and every tech in the place was in the room dosing him. She said there were like ten people holding him down. She told me just as Rachel had, "Someone must've done something to him because he's really hard to dose and the dogs in this room are really good about it." Kevin tried holding the dog while Lynn dosed, the dog struggled and screamed and cried.
After a lot of rough struggling, they switched places. Lynn and I tried holding him while Kevin dosed. Again there was a lot of struggling and eventually the dog made Kevin mad and he grabbed the dog's face and twisted his head around toward him. There is video of this and clearly Kevin lost his temper and used far more force than was necessary just to get back at the scared dog.
When we dosed 3216, he immediately defecated and started retching. I told Lynn he had done the same thing yesterday. He salivated and stayed at the back of his cage for the rest of the time we were in the room. About 20 minutes later I walked by and saw Kevin holding the dog on a cart.

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He said he would have to sacrifice the dog and smiled. He said the dog had test material in his lungs. I told him that dog had gotten very sick after dosing yesterday acting just like he was now, that he'd retched and vomited clear foamy liquid and defecated immediately after dosing. I asked him why he wasn't dead already if he'd taken a lung-shot. Kevin told me it's not only fluid in his lungs, it's also inhaling the test material.
He said maybe when he vomited he aspirated some of the test material into his lungs and inhalation is the quickest route of exposure to substances. He said, "It's a direct hit to your system - through the lungs." He listened to the dog's chest with a stethoscope, complaining they didn't even work, he couldn't hear anything through them. He found another stethoscope and said he didn't think there was test material in his lungs he didn't hear any raspiness or bubbling. This diagnosis took about half an hour and I can tell you I was sweating it. I watched the video of this and can see the tube went in the proper place, and not in the dog's lungs, but I still feel horrible for putting this dog and so many others through this misery.
Later that day I went in to check on the dogs and 3216 was acting normal, jumping around his cage and barking for attention. Dog 3220 didn't get sick today. I've noticed the gavage tube is always pulled out quickly as dosing is finished. The clear liquid test material flies everywhere, the dogs shake their heads violently and lick their mouths frantically as if the substance has a bad taste. If what Kevin says is true, dogs could easily be exposed to test material in their lungs when the tube is pulled out. There is obviously still test material in the end or the tube when it's yanked back out of the dogs' throat.
Lynn didn't pre-moisten any of the gavage tubes before she dosed.
I caught and held primates for dosing in 3314. I can't wait until this study is over. The monkeys hate having the tube jammed us their nose. Some of them have learned to use their tongues to push it back out through their mouths as it is fed in.
In the primate NO studies, each dose group has their own set of tubes and there are enough tubes so each monkey gets a separate tube for dosing: However, the tubes are only rinsed out after dosing and used again the next day.

3/11/97 Tuesday HLS
I helped Kevin, Dilip, and Yimmer with ECG's in 3314. The ECG's are supposed to be done four hours after dosing, with only 5 minutes per ECG. Kevin was all stressed out about the time factor