Summary of Baboon Head-Injury Studies at the University of Pennsylvania& Results of ALF Break-in

The Study: An attempt to create a reliable animal model of human head injury.

Babbons are given PCP to facilitate restraint. Then they are brought to the operating room. Nitrous oxide is delivered while animals are instrumented with various monitors and their heads encased in metal helmets and fixed in place in the acceleration device. Nitous oxide is withdrawn up to an hour before the head injury. Nitrous oxide would only be reinstituted if the experiment went awry (this was not clarified).

Consciousness prior to injury was needed to perform pre and post tests. Injury is cause by a piston being driven into the helmet at forces up to two thousand times the force of gravity. This is supposed to simulate the soft tissue damage caused by blunt head trauma. Animals would be maintained post-injury for up to two months. Then they were killed and their brains analyzed. The experiments lacked a testable hypothesis, but some investigators claimed that these experiments provided basic information about pathological events.

A few days prior to 5/31/84 - USDA inspectors uncover 4 violations of USDA regulations in Dr. Thomas Gennarelli’s head-injury labs. Nothing major.

5/31/84 - ALF breaks into Head Injury study labs at Penn and steals 32 audiovisual tapes, covering 5 years of experiments. They also vandalize equipment and write their initials on the lab walls.

PETA handles ALF’s public relations. The 60-80 hours of tape are reduced to a 25 minute version showing only abuses, including performance of painful surgery without proper pain relief, reuse of surgical instruments that have fallen on the floor, laboratory personnel mocking brain injured animals (including holding animals up by broken arms, use of profanity, and laughing at unconscious or brain damaged animals), inadequate anesthesia and analgesia (including animals straining against restraints just prior to a piston being driven against the animal’s helmet encased head), multiple injuries to the same animals, and other violations of animals care and sterility of animal environment.

Gennarelli denied misconduct and continued to support the importance of the study.

Over a year later DHHS suspended renewal of funding.

7-18-85 - OPRR found nothing intrinsically wrong with the design of the study or its intrinsic purpose. They did find Gennarelli guilty of nine charges: lack of anesthesia, inadequate supervision, poor training, inferior veterinary care, unnecessary multiple injuries to the same animals, inappropriate humor, smoking, “statements in poor taste” around animals and improper clothing. They fined The university $4,000 for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. NIH removed its funding restrictions nine months after suspension of funding in response to corrections made by the University.