
DATE: Monday, June 16, 1997                 TAG: 9706160052

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  171 lines

PETA INVESTIGATIONS: UNCOVERING THE TRUTH? PETA'S TACTICS ARE BVEING QUESTIONED AFTER A RECENT INVESTIGATION OF ANIMAL TESTING AT A NEW JERSEY COMPANY

Michele was once a model technician at Huntingdon Life Sciences in East Millstone, N.J.

When she walked away from the research laboratory in May, she left with references: multiple copies of a letter of recommendation from her supervisor. Not photocopied - individually printed, each signed on company letterhead. She thought that was a nice touch after just eight months on the job.

``I heard a lot of `Sorry to see you gos,' '' Michele said.

As to that aspect of her tenure there, Huntingdon Life Sciences has had a change of heart.

Michele, 30, was an investigator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She gathered what PETA alleges is evidence of cruelty to animals and violations by Huntingdon of federal regulations protecting animals used in medical experimentation.

Each workday Michele took copious notes, and she often used a miniature video camera. At her home base, a modest two-bedroom apartment 10 minutes from the lab, she spent her nights transcribing notes onto computer disks, which were later mailed to PETA.

The disks tell of technicians shoving test bottles into the mouths of monkeys and improper anesthetization of animals before surgical procedures. Even the supervisor who wrote so well of her is implicated in her notes.

Hers was a common undercover operation for an investigations department - a branch with four full-time workers and an arsenal of high-tech gear - on which Norfolk-based PETA spends $2 million per year.

Much like the case that launched the organization and its co-founder, Alex Pacheco, to prominence 16 years ago, Michele's work at Huntingdon has garnered headlines, though none of PETA's charges against Huntingdon has been proven.

Still, PETA earned a partial victory: Video that Michele recorded of a testing program, which was funded by Procter & Gamble Co., concerned the industry giant enough that it suspended its tests at Huntingdon pending the results of an investigation. Michele was at the news conference June 4 in Cincinnati where PETA released the video to the news media. Michele, who will not reveal her last name to protect future work, wore a disguise.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is also investigating after taking a statement from Michele June 5 at PETA's Norfolk headquarters.

So Michele, who grew up in rural Minnesota and was a hair dresser for 10 years before joining PETA because she couldn't sleep at night because she knew humans in the world were abusing animals, may soon be in court.

PETA investigations began in 1981 when Pacheco, then a Maryland college student, volunteered at the Institute for Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Md.

Acting on information supplied by Pacheco, who documented conditions there using a hidden camera, local police raided the lab and seized documents, samples and 17 monkeys used in experiments designed to help humans recover from strokes.

The chief investigator at the lab, scientist Edward Taub, was convicted on charges of violating state cruelty charges and was fined.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Taub charged that by manipulation of facts, media and law enforcement, ``a small group of individuals intent on banning animal research has closed my lab and damaged my work.''

That small group - PETA - issued a statement celebrating its ``landmark victory'' moments after the conviction.

Taub's complaint has a familiar ring. It has been echoed through the years by PETA's opponents, be they scientists at Huntingdon or Hampton Roads trappers and fishermen who gathered outside an animal-rights symposium in Norfolk this year to protest PETA's anti-fishing and -hunting campaign.

At that gathering, a hunters-rights protester bore a ``PETA'' sign of his own design. It stood for ``People Eating Tasty Animals.''

Alan Staple, president of Huntingdon Life Sciences, is weathering the PETA-driven onslaught.

Huntingdon is always in compliance with federal laws, Staple said, as he denied PETA's claims. He noted that this is the same group involved in what he calls publicity stunts - including raiding the offices of fashion designers using fur in an advertisement the group bought in the Des Moines Register shortly after the Jeffrey Dahmer murders; the ad compared the slaughter and consumption of humans as committed by Dahmer to the mass slaughter of animals for food purposes.

Staple compared the animal-rights group's undercover work to industrial espionage.

``PETA has a history of falsifying and lying about information for the purpose of proving their own position,'' Staple said last week. ``This is all about sabotaging a business and an industry.''

Michele is incredulous at the thought that she might be sued over her undercover work. She said all she has done is tell the truth about what she saw.

Through donations and thrifty right-off-the-assembly-line spending, PETA has technology. Pacheco, 38, says it is vital in gathering information such as the Procter & Gamble monkey video.

Pacheco, who has worked undercover with members of an ABC-TV news crew, said PETA's gear is as good as that used by national news organizations - if not better.

``Their equipment was in the Dark Ages compared to ours,'' he laughed, adding that his group will continue to use manpower and technology to uncover what it considers animal abuse.

While a recent court case that ABC lost against the Food Lion grocery store chain did not involve PETA, it poses a possible precedent regarding news gathering techniques the animal-rights group has employed for 17 years.

In December, a North Carolina jury found ABC guilty of using hidden cameras at a Food Lion supermarket and placing television producers undercover as store employees. A federal judge in Greensboro ordered ABC to pay Food Lion more than $5.5 million for fraud.

This was not a libel case. Food Lion did not question ABC's findings in court, just the techniques used by the watchdog press.

Staple said Huntingdon is keeping its legal options open and would not rule out the possibility that the multimillion-dollar company could sue PETA for fraud.

Pacheco concedes he is concerned by the implications of the Food Lion-ABC case, though he said he believes the ruling will be overturned.

``The minute a government inspector walks up to a secretary,'' Pacheco said, ``before he gets out of lobby, half the lab knows he's there. Inspections? Ninety-nine percent of it is a farce, in my opinion.''

All PETA is doing in its undercover work is uncovering the truth, Pacheco maintained.

``If they say there's nothing wrong, prove it,'' he said. ``Let people in. Let people in to witness it.''

Huntingdon said it has never received a request from PETA to visit its facility.

Visitation procedures vary from lab to lab, but Huntingdon is hired to perform tests for other companies that own the data. Breaking client confidentiality is not a sound business practice.

An industry insider who spoke on condition of anonymity posed this question: ``If you were a research lab, would you want PETA anywhere near you?''

What may appear to be brutal treatment to an untrained observer may indeed be well within the laws described in the Animal Welfare Act - and may also be necessitated by the government.

``We look with certainly a less-biased eye,'' said W. Ron DeHaven, a USDA official. ``The work that's going at toxicology labs of this sort is required by the government. That cuts to the heart: If the care, treatment and housing surrounding the welfare of the animals was consistent with regulations.''

The department also takes into consideration the means tipsters employ. Very few of the hundreds of complaints the department processes are what they consider valid, though all are checked out, DeHaven said.

``While we have information from PETA, we need to document for ourselves what those conditions were.''

Michele is temporarily sidelined in the wake of her Huntingdon undercover work, but other PETA investigations are under way somewhere in the United States. Tight-lipped PETA members will say only that a man known as ``Jack'' is working on a ``fur thing.''

Michele owned a home before she volunteered for PETA four years ago. In those days, she had a lucrative career and was close to her family and friends. She worked 32 hours a week, and had three months of vacation time per year.

Now most of her life is confidential. It is difficult for her to talk to people because she must leave out most of her day. She almost made friends with the couple downstairs from her apartment in New Jersey, but working two full-time jobs, for PETA and for Huntingdon, took away her leisure time.

It was more than three years ago that she worked her first case, at a farm in North Dakota. It has been a month since she left Huntingdon, but she said she still sees the animals when she closes her eyes. She is still with PETA, documenting what she believes is the truth. MEMO: Related story on page B3.

Company suspends testing at research lab:

Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co. joins Procter & Gamble in suspending

animal testing with the New Jersey company ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

As an investigator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,

Michele, 30, gathered what she says is evidence of cruelty to

animals at Huntingdon Life Sciences, where she worked undercover for

eight months.

Color photo KEYWORDS: LABORATORY ANIMALS