The Air Force Chimps

In the late 1950s, the U.S. Air Force created the Holloman Aeromedical Laboratory on Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. Populating the lab were chimpanzees kidnapped from Africa for spaceflight research.

Ham and Enos famously preceded Alan Shepherd and John Glenn into space. When no longer used for spaceflight research, the Air Force leased the chimps out for biomedical research. In the early 1970s, notorious toxicologist Fred Coulston assumed control of the chimps on Holloman, and would remain there until 1980. He would return in 1993 after forming the Coulston Foundation, to take over care of approximately 150 Air Force chimps. Coulston already owned a toxicology lab, White Sands Research Center, that housed over 100 chimps. The controversy about Coulston’s takeover, and New Mexico State University’s dumping hundreds of chimpanzees, and millions of dollars in lifetime endowment funds, to Coulston’s Foundation, helped to launch the issue of chimps in experimentation into the media stratosphere.

The Air Force plans to give away 144 chimpanzees, most of them the offspring of the primates used in pioneering in the 1950s and 60s housed at the Alamogordo-based Coulston Foundation… “We plan to take the animals off the base,” Kleiman said, who noted that chimpanzees share 98.4 percent of human DNA and that some have been taught sign language in controlled studies. “We view them as unique individuals who should not be used in (biomedical) research.” In Defense of Animals has been a longtime critic of Frederick Coulston, the Coulston Foundation’s owner, for the organization’s use and care of chimps. In May, In Defense of Animals filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health over the deaths of two chimps at the Alamogordo lab. The USDA is investigating the January and March deaths of two other chimps at the Coulston Foundation, Kleiman said. The care and maintenance of the animals is expensive in part because chimps can live up to 50 years, Kleiman said.

Minnie was a Famous Air Force Chimpanzee whom experimenters called an “Expired Animal Carcass”

Minne was Ham’s backup, and the only female chimp trained for the Mercury spaceflight program. She became part of the Air Force chimpanzee breeding program. In 1998, after her death, the Coulston Foundation made a big p.r. push, claiming she was buried in a place of honor at a spaceflight museum in New Mexico. In reality, CF used her remains in a highly controversial spinal disk replacement experiment that caused the negligent death of the chimp Eason in 1999.

How did Coulston Foundation experimenters describe Minnie? “An expired animal carcass.” This was the reality of invasive experimentation on chimps at CF, and elsewhere. This study record was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the USDA regarding its investigation into the negligent death of the chimpanzee Eason at Coulston during the cervical disk replacement experiments sponsored by Spinal Dynamics. Eason’s death was included as part of the USDA’s settlement with Coulston in September 1999 that required the lab to divest of 300 chimpanzees. The FDA later found multiple violations of data integrity regulations during this experiment.

The Coulston Foundation

In April 1999, officials with CF, then the world’s largest chimpanzee lab housing half of the U.S. population of captive chimps, blamed In Defense of Animals for the lab’s financial woes during a site visit and audit by the National Institutes of Health (NIH): The auditors wrote that “Dr. Coulston stated that in the past the CF has had sufficient funding from both Federal and non-Federal sources to maintain the facility. Recently, several organizations have phased out their projects, resulting in a significant drop in income. He attributed the loss of funds to allegations of misconduct by an animal protection organization (In Defense of Animals) and unresolved compliance issues with the USDA and the OPRR.” Other Coulston officials said that “the grim financial situation did not occur overnight” and that the lab had been “experiencing financial difficulties for more than one year” because of “unfavorable attention and press resulting from the USDA charges and allegations by In Defense of Animals.” NIH said it conducted the audit after it “became aware of serious administrative and financial concerns” in November 1998 related to layoffs, resignations and finances.

In Defense of Animals had filed a complaint with the USDA and issued a press release (resulting in news stories) in November 1998 regarding these concerns. Those blaming IDA for CF’s “severe loss of funding” included CEO Frederick Coulston, shortly after he had written a letter to the NIH bemoaning the “constant barrage of negative comments/charges being leveled at CF by the animal rights groups and USDA” that had:

• “driv[en] away many of our long time private and government sponsors”

• “strained our financial resources”

• caused a “severe loss of funding” and “financial situation” at CF for years.

The 1999 NIH audit found that CF was on the verge of bankruptcy. Consequently, the NIH began providing millions of dollars in illegal “supplemental awards” to avert the lab’s collapse. A few months later, a settlement between the USDA and CF regarding administrative charges prompted by In Defense of Animals resulted in CF’s agreeing to cut its chimpanzee population in half.

The caretaker of the nation’s largest colony of research chimpanzees has agreed to give away almost half of them in an unusual negotiation with the United States Department of Agriculture… In March 1997, Echo, a 2-year-old female chimp, died after being operated on by two inexperienced veterinarians. In early 1998, a chimp named Holly died from preventable side effects of a drug that was being tested at the foundation. Two more chimps died from the same cause in June 1998. The most recent death, during a spinal experiment, occurred in May. The Agriculture Department, partly as a result of investigations by an animal protection advocacy group, In Defense of Animals, filed charges in 1997 and then again this year….Fourteen veterinarians have left the foundation since 1994, a high turnover rate. In the last two years, most of the foundation's veterinarians have had only minimal experience with chimps, according to In Defense of Animals. Indeed, agricultural officials said worries about Mr. Coulston's finances prompted the agency to include a provision in their recent agreement allowing auditors access to his financial records. In Defense of Animals said the foundation had lost 30 percent of its revenue between July 1997 and June 1998. Mr. McKinney of the foundation declined to respond.

Three years later, the Coulston Foundation was officially out of business, with 266 chimpanzees and 61 monkeys going to Save the Chimps as a result of the Arcus Foundation’s incredible generosity.

The Coulston Foundation, an Alamogordo biomedical research facility, got out of chimpanzee-related research last week and turned its remaining 288 chimps over to one of the lab’s harshest critics….California-based In Defense of Animals, Coulston’s most persistent critic, said its eight-year long campaign had spurred unprecedented regulatory action by the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture and had pushed the Coulston Foundation to the brink of financial ruin. The USDA, often spurred by the group’s complaints, charged the Coulston Foundation with violations of the Animal Welfare Act four times, with some charges stemming from the allegedly negligent deaths of 10 chimps….Last year, the FDA warned Coulston it would not accept study results while violations of Good Laboratory Practice standards continued at the Alamogordo facility. Around the same time, the NIH—which had provided much of the agency’s annual income—discontinued all financial support to Coulston. Last December, the First National Bank of Alamogordo filed foreclosure papers against Coulston for more than $1.1 million in outstanding loans.

In its 2002 article “Good Life Awaits Primates,” the Albuquerque Journal reported that these chimpanzees and monkeys “were saved by an intense campaign by In Defense of Animals.”

Working with IDA Program Director, master strategist, and media wizard Suzanne Roy, Eric was centrally involved in the eight-year IDA campaign that put the Coulston Foundation out of business.

Testimony before Congress

In March 2000, Eric testified before Congress about the Coulston Foundation’s execrable animal welfare record, its violations of both the Animal Welfare Act and the FDA’s Good Laboratory Practice regulations, and NIH’s illegal funding of the facility despite violations of these laws. His testimony also called for a Congressional investigation of NIH, and an end to chimpanzee experimentation. After he testified, Congress launched an agency-wide investigation of NIH’s oversight of billons of dollars in grants, citing the continued funding of Coulston despite the documented violations of animal welfare and data integrity laws.

Charles River Laboratories

In September 2004, New Mexico District Attorney Scot Key filed multiple counts of criminal animal cruelty against Charles River Laboratories for the deaths of the chimps Rex and Ashley, and the near-death of Topsy. This was the first time in history that an entire company had been charged with criminal animal cruelty. The charges were also an indictment of NIH, which had funded and enabled the abuses at the Coulston Foundation and was legally responsible for the operations at the Alamogordo Primate Facility, which was an intramural NIH lab.

In July 2003, Eric wrote an 18-page letter to District Attorney Scot Key, urging that his office investigate and prosecute. After a year-long criminal investigation, the D.A. filed the historic charges against CRL. Eric ended his letter to Key with a final plea:

There is a huge void at the APF that can only be filled by the Otero County District Attorney vigorously prosecuting the blatant animal cruelty at the NIH/Charles River alleged by IDA. The Animal Welfare Act [USDA] has no jurisdiction at the APF. The Act specifically recognizes the importance of state statutes like New Mexico’s, even citing state anti cruelty statutes in its regulations. The federal Animal Welfare Act is not comparable to the New Mexico anti cruelty statute. The New Mexico statutory language which corresponds directly to the IDA allegations against the NIH/Charles River – and the case law support prosecution. There is a huge conflict of interest in allowing the NIH to police itself; the term “NIH investigation” is, at best, an oxymoron. The legitimate purposes of the New Mexico statute, which was duly enacted by the New Mexico legislature, would be frustrated completely without the Otero County District Attorney’s active involvement in this case. This is because the New Mexico statute, through the D.A., has the only legitimate law enforcement capability at the APF.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH)-owned chimpanzee facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico, faces new animal-welfare accusations. On 7 September the state district attorney in Otero County filed criminal animal-cruelty charges against Charles River Laboratories, which runs the facility under a 10-year contract from NIH, and veterinarian Rick Lee, who heads the staff there. The charges stem from the deaths in 2002 of two chimps, both of which were left in the care of night security guards although they were severely ill or injured, and the near-death of a third, who also was left overnight under the care of security guards….A group that has long criticized the facility, In Defense of Animals, claims the situation has not improved. Based on reports from whistleblowers inside the lab, the group lobbied the district attorney to bring animal-cruelty charges in the deaths of two chimps: Rex, a 16-year-old with liver and kidney failure, allegedly was left unconscious in the care of night security guards when the daytime shift of medical personnel ended. He was found dead a few hours later, apparently having suffocated on his vomit. Ashley, a 16-year-old female, was attacked by 11 other chimps and severely injured. Although prone to hemorrhage, she allegedly was also left without medical care overnight and was found dead by security guards. Critics also charge that a third chimp, Topsy, a 26-year-old female, was left without care overnight while bleeding from a wound sustained in a fight. She was found listless and pale the next morning and required emergency blood transfusions.

After the charges were filed, Charles River Laboratories—the world’s largest supplier of animals for experimentation and NIH’s hand-picked contractor—named Eric in a Brady motion, stating that the landmark criminal cruelty case filed against the company was “instigated, prepared and ghostwritten” by In Defense of Animals and its pro bono attorneys.

Eric had recruited these generous attorneys to provide legal research regarding this case, as well as the successful Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed against the National Institutes of Health for the medical records of Rex, Ashley, Topsy, and hundreds of other chimpanzees at the Alamogordo Primate Facility. In fact, the FOIA request and subsequent lawsuit came after CRL refused to comply with a subpoena from the D.A. seeking the medical records for Rex, Ashley, and Topsy. After the company refused to supply the records to the D.A., a grand jury issued a subpoena. The NIH continued to fund CRL’s contract to operate the APF, and so whitewashed the allegations that the company cited the report in later pleadings. CRL maintained this contract, worth tens of millions of dollars, for the next 20 years.

In a September 2004 email to various officials at the NIH and various primate research labs, CRL’s director of corporate communications wrote that the unprecedented cruelty charges filed against the company were “driven by an animal activist singularly focused on APF.”

After being issued multiple subpoenas, Charles River Laboratories filed a motion for protective order in March 2005. The company complained to the court that the “same Washington, D.C., IDA attorneys who have been ghost-writing this prosecution” had filed a “federal lawsuit on behalf of IDA” to obtain what CRL called the same “confidential and proprietary records” that were the subject of the grand jury subpoena. IDA obtained these, and records for hundreds of other chimps, after defeating NIH in the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit cited by CRL in this motion.

In a September 2004 email to the pro-animal research lobbying organization Americans for Medical Progress about the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, prominent chimpanzee experimenter and apologist William Satterfield warned that “This IDA thing is very dangerous. This will open the door for the AR's to demand the moratorium on funding any chimp research and go after records in more facilities.”

This successful “IDA thing,” filed by the pro bono law firm Spriggs & Hollingsworth, led to the groundbreaking McClatchy Newspapers Special Report “Chimps: Life in the Lab.”

A few months later, Scientific American, citing the McClatchy Special Report, called for a ban on chimpanzee experimentation; shortly after that, the Institute of Medicine made the groundbreaking determination that chimpanzees were not necessary for research.