Glass Houses and All That

Some interesting news crossed the transom here at the HQ just now. It seems Rep. Shri Thanedar, the Michigan Dem who filed articles of impeachment the other day, could have some literal skeletons in his closet.

Thanedar was the primary owner and CEO of a company called Azopharma. They did contract research into drug safety for the pharmaceutical industry. Primarily, they did animal testing through a direct susidiary called AniClin. That company went bankrupt in 2010. And that’s whatever, companies go BK all the time.

What is not whatever is what the company did to the animals in its lab when it went into receivership.

They left them there, locked in their cages with no care plan. Former employees have stated they had to scale fences to provide care to the more than 170 animals in that facility.

Yes , you read that correctly, the company left more than 170 animals locked in cages waiting to starve to death. There were 118 beagles and 55 long tailed macaques left locked up without access to food or water after the bankruptcy.

There is a happy ending. Despite Thanedar wanting to sell the animals to help recover funds for creditors, the bankruptcy court removed all the animals to sanctuaries. Thanedar vigorously opposed that, and filed several motions to that effect in court.

All of the animals were eventually placed.

The beagles went to two separate sanctuaries. St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in Madison, New Jersey, took in 30 beagles, while Pets Alive Animal Sanctuary in Middletown, New York, received 88. The beagles, many of which had never been outside and were described as walking “like on eggshells” on grass, were reported to be in decent health. All were later adopted out.

The macaques were sent to four different facilities: the monkeys to four primate sanctuaries: Mindy’s Memory in Oklahoma, Primarily Primates in San Antonio, Texas, Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation in Kendalia, Texas, and another Texas sanctuary.