Covance by Labcorp

Once known as Huntingdon Life Sciences, they have merged to become the larger Covance, who have then in turn been acquired by a huge USA based corporation Labcorp. They have multiple facilities all around the world and are one of the world's largest contract testing companies.

Their business model is to test any commercial product requested by their clients, including artificial sweeteners, paint, energy drinks, though mostly agrochemicals (fertilisers etc.).

Multiple undercover investigations have exposed horrific cruelty and law breaking:

Sarah Kite 1981:

Sarah worked under cover at HLS for eight months. She started work on the Rodent Toxicology Unit.

"Rats having fits after dosing for up to one minute. Cages 85, 95 and 100 had large amounts of dark red blood on their trays." A technician described them as "rotting but still alive."

She found the Dog Toxicology Unit so harrowing she only stayed for 8 weeks. Beagles were poisoned with pesticides, dental hygiene products, drugs and food wrapping film. In one test, 48 Beagles had an anti-psoriatic cream applied to their shaved backs for 30 days. The cream was rubbed into the open sores and blisters they developed. “They were visibly shaking and often so scared they were unable to leave their cages."

Such pointless torture was also illustrated in a 1972 HLS report admitting that "there is a great variation in the skin irritancy response of mice, guinea pigs, piglets, dogs and baboons."

Michelle Rokke:

New Jersey 1996. She was hired as a lab technician at Huntingdon's New Jersey lab, taping some 50 hours of laboratory activities in her 8 months of employment.

She also made six hours of audiotapes and copied 8,000 pages of documents, including a client list. At the time, HLS was using dogs to test an antibacterial agent additive for tooth paste for Colgate-Palmolive.

It was also revealed that the beagles were to have their legs broken to test a new drug, intended to combat osteoporosis, for the Japanese company, Yamanouchi Pharmaceuticals.

Yamanouchi soon cancelled its contract and the dogs were eventually put up for adoption. The investigation sparked protests resulting in government investigations.

Zoe Broughton 1996:

She secretly filmed inside of HLS UK while working as a laboratory technician. She followed the entire process from puppies' settling in weeks, through experiments and postmortems; assembling evidence of "cruelty and incompetence".

The documentary, It's A Dog's Life was based on her investigations and undercover tapes. It was aired on March 26, 1997.

Two men who had been filmed hitting and shaking dogs admitted to charges of "cruelly terrifying dogs". It was the first time that laboratory technicians had been prosecuted for animal cruelty in the United Kingdom.

Some of the companies who used HLS, subsequently withdrew their contracts. The price of HLS shares also dropped from 121p to 54p over the next few months. At 54p, the company requested that its stock market shares be frozen.