Santa Cruz Biotechnology punished for violating animal ethics

Animal researchers are under intense scrutiny to make sure they abide by strict ethical guidelines. We constantly need to be trained and licensed and to justify the use of each and every animal. The "3Rs" (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) are drilled into us from the start, and animals in scientific research have far more legal protections and oversights than animals on farms or household pets. I strongly support this regulation* - I consider myself an animal rights activist as well as an animal researcher.

This is why I am so glad to see the US government crack-down on Santa Cruz Biotechnology. Santa Cruz (a major antibody producer) illegally kept hundreds of animals in a shadow animal facility it repeatedly lied about to the inspection authorities. It subsequently racked up 31 animal rights violations and then eliminated its entire animal stock (more than 5000 animals) in an attempt to circumvent inspections. This type of (rare) bad behaviour provides ammunition against good animal research facilities, which is why I am glad to see they are essentially being shut-down with a $3.5-million fine and (more importantly) it has permanently lost its licence to sell, buy, trade or import animals. Santa Cruz is now out of the animal research community, and we are better for it.

*small proviso, I support regulation that is intended to protect animals. I do not support regulation where the intent is to provide a back-door ban on animal research by making pointless regulations that are so difficult and expensive to abide by that they essentially consistent a de facto ban