DATE: Monday, June 16, 1997                 TAG: 9706160084
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   27 lines

2ND COMPANY STOPS ANIMAL TESTING AFTER PETA VIDEOTAPE

A second company in as many weeks is suspending animal testing with a New Jersey company targeted in a recent undercover operation by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Friday, in a letter to Norfolk-based PETA, Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co. agreed to suspend testing at Huntingdon Life Sciences in East Millstone, N.J. Procter & Gamble Co., after viewing secretly filmed video in which test monkeys were allegedly mishandled, suspended its tests there June 4.

The tests for Yamanouchi were to have involved breaking the bones of beagles to test a fracture-healing product.

``It's a wonderful first step, but it's not good enough,'' PETA spokeswoman Lisa M. Lange said Sunday. ``We're urging them to give the dogs up.''

Actress Kim Basinger, a longtime PETA supporter, has written Yamanouchi condemning their testing and requesting that the animals be released to her care.

Yamanouchi, the third-largest pharmaceutical company in Japan, has a flourishing export trade with the U.S. and Europe. Founded in 1923, the company recently began construction on two research labs in Oklahoma and California.

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