Former breeder of lab animals now works to protect them

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For seven years, Kathleen Conlee was a lab animal insider, helping to breed and study thousands of monkeys -- mainly macaques -- in several private and university research facilities.

At times, she managed a nursery where she tried to bring down the death rate of newborn primates, and worked to set up enrichment programs to improve the psychological health of the animals.

But since 1999, she’s worked to improve the lot of all research animals as an advocate with the Humane Society of the United States, headquartered in Washington, drawing attention to maltreatment wherever it can be documented.

“I know from experience that the oversight and inspections just aren’t enough to identify and correct all the problems in these facilities," she said. "As an advocate for animals, I was happy when the inspectors showed up, there were even times when we were surprised by the visits, but after they left, not much changed for the better.”

Conlee directs the society’s efforts to monitor and challenge animal research around the country, particularly focused on ending the most painful, stressful tests on all species.

“We’re ultimately working for the day when animals are not used at all, but on the ground today, the focus is on whether everything possible is being done to relieve suffering," Conlee said.

“We don’t think procedures that result in the most severe levels of pain and suffering should be allowed, yet our analysis of annual reports -- and we know the reporting is not always complete -- by the labs and scientific literature suggest that the percentage of animals are classified as subjected to unrelieved pain and distress remains at the same level year after year.”

One specific campaign has urged students and alumni to press officials at more than 400 federally funded universities to adopt more aggressive policies to end suffering of research animals, including banning certain procedures.

So far, about 63 institutions have responded with at least some changes to their policies.

(Email Scripps Howard News Service science correspondent Lee Bowman at bowmanl(at)shns.com.)