Hyderabad, (UNI) People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India on Tuesday alleged that dogs, rhesus macaques and other animals endure painful procedures and languish for years at the Palamur Biosciences laboratory here and demanded govt regulators take steps to stop animal testing in experiments.
In a statement here, Anjana Aggarwal, Scientist and Research Policy Advisor at PETA India said, “We urged the government regulators to end the torment of animals imprisoned at Palamur Biosciences. Anything less than the facility’s permanent shutdown is a green light for abuse.”
In its complaints submitted to the Committee for the Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CCSEA), the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and the National GLP Compliance Monitoring Authority (NGCMA), PETA India urged them to immediately terminate the company’s registration to use animals in testing, prosecution under applicable rules and rehabilitation of survival animals.
According to the whistleblowers who contacted PETA India, the laboratory allegedly poisons beagles and other animals, and reportedly keeps animals in overcrowded cages or in social isolation, and in environments that cause the animals injuries and infections, and often painful death when the animals are deemed no longer of use.
Among the reported abuses, whistleblowers say Palamur kept more beagles than the facility could properly house—some 1,500 dogs in a space designed for a maximum of about 800, forcing three to four dogs into cages meant for just two.
The overcrowding, coupled with a lack of socialisation and competition for food, led to extreme frustration and frequent fights, often causing serious injuries, especially to the dogs’ ears. Despite these wounds, the company failed to provide basic care, neglecting both proper wound cleaning and pain management.
In some studies conducted by Palamur, dogs were injected with test compounds under the skin (subcutaneously). These injections—either due to the compounds themselves or impurities in their formulation—sometimes caused infections at the injection sites. These infections could spread, eating through the skin and damaging the underlying tissue, leaving the dogs with open, painful wounds, PETA India claimed.
