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(Emphasis mine)
Many of these animals die in the course of toxic testing exposures. Other animals are destroyed at the conclusion of testing. There are also dreadful mistakes: A lab monkey recently died after getting wedged in faulty lab equipment, and technician error left other monkeys with burns on their genitals.
What a weirdly euphemistic way to describe it. “Killed,” “put down,” or even “euthanized” would be far clearer. “Destroyed” isn’t even especially positive, but it’s just strangely vague. I get that it’s probably a term of art in the industry, but I would have put it in quotes to show that and call attention to the fact that they intentionally try to distance themselves from their actual practices.
I used to work for a preclinical pharmaceutical company and our primary model was monkeys (macaques like rhesus and cynmolgus). We worked on drugs for cancer, Alzheimer’s, lupus, and more.
We had full time 24/7 vets, regular checkups, enrichment programs, and the techs would constantly give the animals treats and were very passionate about the most humane treatment. We got surprise inspected by the FDA and others in order to keep our GLP and AAALAC status and we worked with some major companies who would not work with us if we lost our status.
Euthanasia was a big part of many studies because they need to necropsy the animals so they can see what the drugs to do parts of the body.
This mention of “destroyed” seems much more harsh than what I experienced in the labs. Burning testicles is brutal bullshit - what the hell are they even testing?! This lab sounds like a fucking shit show!!!
