Democratic gubernatorial candidate Shri Thanedar is denying responsibility for a 2010 incident in which more than 100 beagles and monkeys used for lab testing were reportedly abandoned after his companies were placed in receivership.
A July 2010 article from USA TODAY that was circulating on social media Thursday said caretakers had to climb fences at the Oxford, N.J.-based AniClin Preclinical Services research facility in order to get food and water to the dogs, which were later put up for adoption.
In addition to 118 dogs, many of which had not yet been used for testing, animal groups rescued 55 monkeys from the facility, according to media reports from 2010.
Thanedar confirmed Thursday he was the 100% owner and chairman of the board of AniClin, which was part of the Azopharma group of companies owned by Thanedar that were placed in receivership by Bank of America and liquidated in 2010 to settle debts of $24 million.
Thanedar, who said he was not involved in the day-to-day operation of AniClin, said he warned the bank about the company's live animals and ongoing drug research for customers and asked that his people be allowed to continue to run the company. But the bank refused and locked him out, he said.
A Bank of America official could not immediately be reached for comment.
"The bank took over (in April 2010) and this thing happened three months later," Thanedar told the Free Press. "What happened in those three months, I have no idea," but "people are using this to discredit me, and it's not correct."
The reports suggest the animals were rescued successfully and put up for adoption or placed in sanctuaries. It's not clear whether they were deprived of food or water before they were moved from the facility.
A July 25, 2010, report in the Eastern Express Times of Pennsylvania quoted Stephen Rene Tello, executive director of the Primarily Primates Sanctuary, as saying 25 male Java macaque monkeys looked pale and thin when they arrived at the sanctuary, and the stress had led many of them to pull out some of their hair.
The resurfacing of the story is the latest challenge for Thanedar, an Ann Arbor businessman who has spent millions on TV ads that have vaulted him to the top of the race for the Democratic nomination for governor. He's also had to contend with reports about a business lawsuit in which he was accused of civil fraud and stories that he initially was undecided about whether to run as a Democrat or a Republican.
The USA TODAY report from 2010 said animal rescue groups got possession of the dogs on the July 4 weekend after they learned weeks earlier that AniClin had locked its doors. After legal machinations, St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center in Madison, N.J., ultimately got 30 of the dogs to prepare for adoption; Pets Alive Animal Sanctuary in Middletown, N.Y., got 88 of them, the report said.
Other media reports from 2010, in lehighvalleylive.com and the Eastern Express Times, said a judge agreed on June 30, 2010, to let animal rights organizations put the beagles and 55 monkeys from the facility in shelters and sanctuaries.
A call Thursday to the St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center was not immediately returned.
Becky Tegze, executive director of Pets Alive animal rescue, told the Free Press Thursday that when the beagles arrived at her facility, "they certainly were not emaciated dogs," though "some (of their) nails were overgrown."
However, "at the time we were told former employees were jumping fences and going in and taking care of them," Tegze said.
Once they were adopted by families, "they did wonderful," she said.
Thanedar said he purchased AniClin in 2007 and it and his other companies were victims of the recession. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires animal testing for drugs to treat heart disease and other ailments and the lab had regular inspections and was run properly, he said.
"When I ran the facility, I did it with integrity," he said.
Animal testing was involved in only about 3% of the chemical analysis work carried out by his businesses, Thanedar said. "No animals were ever harmed, and we went to great lengths to exceed the necessary guidelines as outlined by the FDA." he said.
Officials with the campaigns of Thanedar's two Democratic opponents, former Senate minority leader Gretchen Whitmer and former Detroit health department director Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, had no immediate comment on the incident involving the closed lab and the animals it housed.
