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Chronology of Events Relating to the Coulston Foundation

Prepared by In Defense of Animals
January 5, 2001


1980 – Toxicologist Fred Coulston starts White Sands Research Center, a private contract testing facility, in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1988 – White Sands advertises the availability of its chimpanzees for developing cosmetics and insecticides.

April 1993 – New Mexico State University announces intent to turn over lease to operate primate lab on Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico to Coulston. Coulston consolidates his for profit companies into the non-profit Coulston Foundation (TCF) in order to receive from NMSU gifts of hundreds of chimpanzees and monkeys, $400,000 in cash, and over $700,000 in chimpanzee “endowment” funds meant for the lifetime care of specific chimpanzees.

July 1, 1993 – TCF takes over day-to-day primate lab located on Holloman. Combined with the chimpanzees at White Sands, TCF now controls over 500 chimpanzees, making it the world’s largest captive chimpanzee colony. These include over 140 Air Force-"owned" chimpanzees, who had been used in space flight research, whom TCF "leases."

October 31, 1993 – Three chimpanzees, Robert, James and Raymond, overheat to death after the temperature in their den soars to 150 degrees.

May 1994 – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducts a site visit at TCF, and finds TCF's veterinary care program to be inadequate and its overall animal care and use program to be non-compliant with the minimal standards mandated by the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.

October 1994 – The Air Force signs a five-year lease with TCF to care for the Air Force- "owned" chimpanzees over objections from concerned members of the scientific and animal protection communities.

December 1994 – Four monkeys on Holloman Air Force die from water deprivation.

February 1995 – USDA inspection report shows that TCF caretakers had falsified daily care logs for the four monkeys who died from water deprivation. The inspector notes that the caretakers should have noticed the obvious signs of monkeys slowly and painfully dying from thirst.

May 1995 – The Air Force's attempt to give away the 140+ Air Force chimpanzees, and the new $10.5 million, taxpayer-funded chimpanzee housing facility on Holloman Air Force Base, to TCF is blocked by Congress, after concerned individuals, including Dr. Jane Goodall, object.

July 1995 – The USDA files formal charges against TCF for the overheating deaths of Robert, James and Raymond; the four monkey water deprivation deaths; and numerous chimpanzee cage size violations.

August 1995 – New York University announces that it is giving its Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) to TCF, including over 200 chimpanzees. The deal falls through, but not before NYU gives TCF 99 chimpanzees and over $1.75 million in cash. The remainder of the LEMSIP chimpanzees are retired to various facilities by LEMSIP Director C. James Mahoney, DVM, Ph.D.

March 1996 – TCF announces the formation of the “National Center for the Study of Aging in Primates.” The lab's grant application to the NIH for funding for this Center is later rejected out of hand.

June 1996 – TCF settles the July 1995 USDA charges by agreeing to pay a $40,000 fine and promising to cease and desist from violating the Animal Welfare Act.

September 23, 1996 – The Fiscal Year 1997 National Defense Authorization Act becomes law. Congress mandates that the Air Force conduct a fair and open bidding process for the 140+ Air Force chimpanzees. Congress tells the Air Force that the chimpanzees may go to qualified bidders either for research or retirement.

January 1997 – TCF’s chief veterinarian, Dr. Pat Frost, tenders her resignation. Dr. Frost was the “sole remaining” veterinarian at TCF with the necessary experience, training and clinical competence to manage a large chimpanzee colony, according to the May 1994 NIH site visit. She is the seventh veterinarian to have left since TCF took over in July 1993.

January 21, 1997 – A young and healthy 11-year-old chimpanzee named Jello, recently arrived from LEMSIP, dies after being negligently anesthetized in a group by an inexperienced veterinarian. Pathology reports show his lungs and trachea full of plant material, indicating that he had also not been properly fasted prior to anesthesia.

February 4, 1997 –TCF claims in a front-page New York Times story that no negligence involved in the death of Jello. TCF CEO Fred Coulston is quoted as saying that he could raise chimpanzees like cattle for use as human blood and organ banks, and that lead levels in the blood have no effect on intelligence.

March 1997 – The USDA prepares a subpoena for records related to the death of Jello in order to obtain a damning internal memo TCF has tried to withhold.

March 24, 1997 – A two-year-old chimpanzee named Echo dies at TCF after suffering a non-life threatening injury to her arm after being attacked by an older male chimpanzee in an adjacent cage. She dies after a botched surgery by veterinarians so inexperienced that they consult a surgery manual while the young chimpanzee is on the operating table.

April 1997 – The Environmental Protection Agency files a formal complaint against a TCF lab for multiple violations of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) violations found by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relating to an insecticide marketed by Coulston Products Inc. GLP regulations exist to ensure data integrity and human safety. Coulston eventually settles the charges by paying a $12,000 fine.

July 1997 –TCF’s chief veterinarian (Dr. Drew Williams) resigns, along with another veterinarian and the lab’s psychological enrichment director.

July 31, 1997 – A USDA inspection report finds numerous violations, including those related to lack of proper procedures regarding an outbreak of Shigella that has killed several chimpanzees, including Panda (another of the ex-LEMSIP chimpanzees). The USDA characterizes the Shigella outbreak as a “public health risk.”

August 1997 – A draft USDA inspection report blasts TCF’s IACUC, which is responsible for reviewing and approving all animal research and overseeing the facilities animal care program, for failing to uphold its legally mandated responsibilities.

December 1997 – In the Wall Street Journal, TCF CEO Fred Coulston reiterates his view that chimpanzees could be used as human blood and organ banks, and also states that AIDS patients should be forced to wear “quarantine” signs outside their doors. The article, about the Air Force chimpanzees, also quotes an Air Force official’s concern about TCF’s extraordinarily high veterinary turnover rate.

January 1998 – A chimpanzee named Holly dies on a study from a well-known side effect of the drug being tested. This side-effect is well-documented in the medical literature and treatable if monitored properly.

February 24-25, 1998 – In an announced site visit requested by TCF, the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) finds fundamental violations of the NIH Guide related to inadequate veterinary staffing, experience and care, inadequate IACUC functioning, and physical plant problems.

March 19, 1998 – The USDA files its second set of formal charges against TCF for the negligent deaths of Jello and Echo, failure to provide adequate veterinary care, and numerous physical plant and sanitary violations. It is the first time in the history of the Animal Welfare Act that a facility has been formally charged twice by the USDA for violations involving negligent primate deaths.

April 1998 – Nelson Garnett, the head of the NIH's Office of Protection from Research Risks (OPRR), which is responsible for enforcing PHS, Policy for Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, claims that TCF has fixed all of its problems. Garnett is contradicted by the findings of the USDA and AAALAC, which evaluates labs for their compliance with this PHS policy.

April 1998 – A federal jury in Las Cruces, NM finds that TCF has violated Title 7 and sexually harassed a former employee. TCF will drop its appeal of the verdict after the judge finds that the evidence supports the verdict. Compliance with Title 7 is a condition of receipt of federal funds, as is compliance with federal animal welfare laws.

June 9-11, 1998 – A USDA inspection report cites TCF for numerous uncorrected IACUC violations.

June 26, 1998 – Two more chimpanzees, Terrance and Muffin, die on a study of the very same drug that had resulted in Holly’s death in January. Terrance and Muffin also die from the very same well-known, and treatable, side effect that had killed Holly. The USDA launches an official investigation into the three chimpanzee deaths.

June 30, 1998 – AAALAC formally rejects TCF’s bid to become accredited, citing facility-wide deficiencies related to inadequate veterinary care, inadequate veterinary staffing, inadequate IACUC functioning, and numerous physical plant problems.

July 1998 – TCF accepts a contract to perform extremely invasive cervical disk replacement experiments on chimpanzees, sponsored by Spinal Dynamics Corp., a Mercer Island, Washington-based start-up company. The study had been rejected by at least one other chimpanzee lab.

August 1998 – The Air Force awards TCF 111 Air Force chimpanzees. The remainder will go to Primarily Primates, a sanctuary in Texas.

August 1998 –The NIH approves a grant to study benign prostate hyperplasia on the chimpanzees at TCF, to be conducted by Mitchell Steiner of the University of Tennessee-Memphis. The NIH peer review process, including the Interagency Animal Models Committee, which is supposed to give chimpanzee studies an extra level of review, never addresses TCF's serious animal care problems or its record of violating federal law.

October 1998 – TCF veterinarian Scott Walden resigns. He is the 13th veterinarian to leave TCF since 1994.

October 1998 – The Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care, whose bid for the Air Force chimpanzees had been rejected, files suit against the Air Force for awarding the chimpanzees to TCF.

November 1998 – TCF lays off approximately 20 employees – 15 per cent of its claimed workforce of 150 – asks senior staff to take a pay cut, and loses its president, Travis Griffin, who had worked with Fred Coulston for almost 30 years.

December 1, 1998 – Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) writes to the NIH expressing concern about NIH’s continued funding of TCF in light of the lab’s record of animal care violations and the sexual harassment verdict, and also questions the lab’s use of publicly funded equipment for private studies.

December 2-3, 1998 – For the second time in nine months, the USDA cites Coulston for failing to provide adequate veterinary care, this time because TCF has only 2.5 clinical veterinarians to care for over 600 chimpanzees and 300 monkeys. The USDA states that TCF needs 3-5 more veterinarians to meet animal care needs at the facility.

December 1998 – In response to the USDA’s findings from December 2-3, OPRR launches an investigation of TCF.

December 31, 1998 – The National Cancer Institute ends a subcontract that TCF had inherited from NMSU to maintain HIV-infected chimpanzees.

February 8-10, 1999 – A USDA inspection report cites TCF for failing to have anyone at the facility with the necessary training and experience to run a psychological enrichment program for almost 1,000 primates. The agency also cites TCF for illegally housing chimpanzees in single cages because the lab has nowhere else to put them.

February 11, 1999 – The USDA files an unprecedented third set of formal charges against TCF for the negligent deaths of Terrance, Muffin and Holly; failure to provide them adequate veterinary care; and numerous IACUC violations related to their deaths. It is the third time in 11 months that the USDA has cited the lab for inadequate veterinary care.

February 16, 1999 – The NIH responds to Representative Maloney, and blatantly misrepresents the situation at TCF. NIH claims that USDA has authority to suspend NIH funding, but has not done so; USDA has no such authority. It also claims that NIH had noticed increasing progress towards TCF’s achieving AAALAC accreditation, even though AAALAC had flatly rejected TCF’s application for accreditation just eight months prior.

February 22, 1999 – OPRR “restricts” TCF’s Animal Welfare Assurance, which maintains the lab's eligibility for federal funding. The restriction requires, among other things, that TCF hire seven “fully qualified” veterinarians. TCF never complies with this order, but continues to receive NIH funding.

March 1999 – The Associate Director of the National Center for Research Resources, Louise Ramm is “tasked” by then-NIH Director Harold Varmus to deal with the burgeoning TCF problem.

March 10, 1999 – TCF CEO Fred Coulston meets with the USDA and several NIH offices, and gives conflicting stories as to the lab’s financial stability. He tells the USDA that TCF has only enough money left for one or two more payrolls.

March 16, 1999 – In a meeting with various USDA and NIH officials, OPRR’s Garnett claims that his office’s concerns parallel USDA’s; that TCF has inadequate IACUC review and inadequate veterinary staffing; and that his office has “great concern about the long-term situation/animals at serious risk.”

March 31, 1999 – TCF’s contract with the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases to maintain HIV-infected chimpanzees expires. Along with the National Cancer Institute subcontract, this contract paid TCF over $10 million since 1993, and had been “critical” to the lab’s operations, according to CEO Fred Coulston.

April 6-7, 1999 –NIH conducts a site visit and audit of TCF and finds the lab on the verge of bankruptcy, with $800,000 in unpaid bills and $2.6 million in outstanding loans. NIH auditors report millions of dollars in endowments, meant for lifetime care of specific chimpanzees, had been “expended.” The site visitors fault TCF's veterinary care and lack of veterinary experience. The NIH characterizes then-TCF president Ronald Couch as “evasive” and unfamiliar with the facilities, and reports that CEO Fred Coulston has made many “contradictory” statements. During the visit, CEO Fred Coulston asks for immediate additional financial support, and blames In Defense of Animals for the lab’s loss of private contracts. NIH worries about the "nasty oversight issues" that the TCF situation raises.

May 1, 1999 – Another chimpanzee, Eason, dies while on the Spinal Dynamics invasive spinal disk replacement experiment.

May 24, 1999 – TCF requests additional financial support from the NIH.

May 25-27, 1999 – A USDA inspection report again cites TCF for multiple IACUC violations, many relating to the invasive spinal disk experiment. The agency pointedly notes that TCF had been told to correct these violations in August 1997 and June 1998.

June 1999 – For the second time in two years, the USDA prepares a subpoena, this time for records related to the death of Eason. A high USDA official attributes TCF’s refusal to turn over the records to a reluctance to releasing damaging evidence.

June 1999 – The NIH begins to send both members of Congress and the public blatantly misleading letters regarding the situation at TCF, including flagrant misrepresentations of the devastating April 1999 NIH site visit/audit.

June 11, 1999 – The NIH begins first of many “supplemental awards” to TCF in an effort to avert bankruptcy at this private lab.

August 1999 – TCF hires David Renquist, who had been a consultant of the lab for years, to be its new president and deputy CEO. Renquist's primary responsibility is to fix the violations identified by the USDA and the NIH, and to gain AAALAC accreditation.

August 19, 1999 – The FDA identifies over 270 violations of GLP regulations on just three studies reviewed at TCF. GLP regulations exist to ensure data integrity and human safety. The report also documents numerous violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

August 24, 1999 – TCF settles the March 1998 and February 1999 formal charges and the investigation into Eason’s death (which found multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act). The unprecedented settlement requires that TCF divest itself of 300 chimpanzees by 2002, almost half of its population, and submit to unprecedented outside oversight measures, including inspection by an external review team of the lab's choosing.

September 15, 1999 – The FDA’s contract with TCF for breeding chimpanzees expires. Combined with the other lost NIH contracts, this accounted for 49.5 per cent of TCF’s entire revenue for Fiscal Year 1997-1998.

October 1999 – The Air Force settles the lawsuit filed against it by the Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care. The Center will receive 21 chimpanzees, 17 former Air Force.

October 19-22, 1999 – A USDA inspection report again cites TCF for IACUC violations. Every inspection report since the August 24, 1999 settlement will document violations of both the legally binding settlement and the Animal Welfare Act.

November 9, 1999 – Donna, a 36-year-old ex-Air Force chimpanzee, dies after carrying a large, dead fetus inside her for weeks, resulting in a massive infection and uterine rupture. During a belated C-section, the TCF veterinarians removed one liter of pus from her abdomen, and observe the dead fetus’s skull poking through her torn uterus. Donna is literally rotting from the inside, but veterinarian cannot obtain permission to euthanize her. Donna is allowed to awaken from surgery. She dies the day after surgery.

December 13-16, 1999 – A USDA inspection report finds that TCF has once again failed to provide adequate veterinary care relating to the deaths of three chimpanzees. This is the fifth such finding since March 1998. The USDA also finds that TCF has only 2.4 clinical veterinarians – less than when OPRR issued its restriction requiring TCF to hire seven fully qualified veterinarians.

December 22, 1999 – The FDA issues a rare formal Warning Letter, ordering the TCF not to initiate any new GLP studies. The Letter states that the conditions at TCF are “serious violations” having “widespread consequences” for data integrity and human safety.

Late January 2000 – The USDA launches an official investigation of Donna’s death. The agency only initiates such “official” investigations after a preliminary inquiry finds evidence of Animal Welfare Act violations sufficent to warrant a full-blown investigation.

February 17, 2000 – TCF denies USDA inspectors access to the facility, a blatant violation of the Animal Welfare Act.

February 28-29, 2000 – AAALAC conducts a site visit at request of TCF, as the External Review Team pursuant to the settlement agreement with USDA. AAALAC again finds fundamental violations of the NIH Guide relating to adequate veterinary care, adequate veterinary staffing, and proper IACUC functioning. Report indicates that conditions have actually worsened since its February 1998 site visit. It notes 100 percent turnover in veterinary staff and blames inadequate veterinary care for the deaths of four chimpanzees. AAALAC suggests deficient conditions may have played a role in the deaths of 13 other chimpanzees in two years.

March 2, 2000 – Shortly after the devastating AAALAC site visit, TCF president David Renquist resigns after a five-month tenure at the lab.

March 21, 2000 – IDA testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Labor, HHS and Education about the NIH’s malfeasance and continued illegal funding of TCF. During the testimony, Subcommittee Chair John Porter (R-IL) asks IDA if it has a solution to the TCF problem.

March 21-23, 2000 – The USDA documents multiple physical plant violations, and also cites TCF for violating the August 24, 1999 settlement by illegally breeding chimpanzees.

April 10, 2000 - IDA, along with the Animal Welfare Institute and the Doris Day Animal League, present plan to Congress to permanently retire 300 chimpanzees, the number that TCF is required by the USDA settlement agreement to divest.

April 28, 2000 - AAALAC issues a scathing report about fundamental and facility wide non-compliance with federal animal care regulations at TCF. AAALAC also faults the lab's compliance with worker safety laws.

May 10, 2000 – The NIH “takes title” to 288 of TCF’s chimpanzees because of concerns about the lab’s financial stability and staffing, and issues a Request For Proposals (RFP) to care for the chimpanzees. However, it leaves the chimpanzees under the “care” of TCF.

May 15, 2000 – NIH official John Strandberg tells the Washington Post that TCF’s problems are mostly public relations, and that the USDA’s concerns are simply wall surface and record keeping violations. When the article is introduced into the record of hearings on the CHIMP Act – a bill to establish a federally funded retirement system for chimpanzees in research – Strandberg claims he was quoted out of context, but he refuses to admit that the USDA had found animal welfare problems at the lab.

May 18, 2000 - NIH official John Strandberg tells Nature that TCF actually deserved to bid on the RFP because it had made so many improvements in its animal care.

May 19, 2000 – OPRR writes to TCF that, based on the External Review Team Report, the lab is in “serious noncompliance” with the PHS Policy. OPRR restricts new funding to the lab, but maintains existing funding (in contravention of federal law) pending a review of current grants and contracts. NIH directs TCF's IACUC – which has found to be grossly deficient by both AAALAC and the USDA – to conduct the review.

May 31, 2000 – TCF IRS Form 990 for Fiscal Year 1998-1999 indicates that CEO Fred Coulston has either given or loaned the foundation over $1.2 million. (Coulston had told the USDA in 1999 that he had sunk $6.8 million of his own money into the facility.) Analysis of the report shows TCF has lost approximately $2.6 million during this Fiscal Year, and has taken in only 50 per cent of what it claims it needs to operate the facility.

June 22, 2000 – In a sworn affidavit, USDA Western Sector Director Robert Gibbens, DVM states that the USDA “anticipates” filing a formal complaint based on the findings of its investigation into Donna’s death, which was completed on May 26, 2000.

July 11-14, 2000 – The USDA again cites TCF for multiple IACUC violations in an inspection report, including studies started without IACUC approval.

August 2000 – Another chimpanzee, ten-year-old Ray, dies at TCF after allegedly not being treated for days despite his being noticed to be ill. Ray was one of the 288 whom the NIH “took title to” in May. After IDA publicizes Ray’s death, and provides the USDA with detailed evidence, the agency will launch yet another official investigation – the 8th since 1993, and the 6th since 1997. IDA publicly blames the NIH as well as TCF for the death.

September 29, 2000 – Former NIH bureaucrat Lou Sibal, who consistently misrepresented the TCF situation to Congress and the public, is awarded a “sole-sourced” contract from NIH to become the “Independent Compliance Official” for TCF pursuant to the August 24, 1999 USDA settlement decree.

October 5, 2000 – An independent peer review panel convened by the NIH rejects TCF’s bid for the RFP to care for the 288 – now 287 – chimpanzees whom the NIH had “taken title to” in May. The NIH cancels the RFP; TCF cannot bid again. The NIH is currently looking for a contractor to care for the 287 chimpanzees.

October 23-26, 2000 – The USDA again cites TCF for multiple IACUC violations, as well as physical plant violations. Incredibly, TCF once again attempts to deny access to the USDA inspectors, but relents after several hours.

November 2, 2000 – The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration fines TCF after finding over a dozen “serious” safety violations at the Holloman site. These violations include the failure to provide proper protective eyewear and respirator training for employees dealing with virus-infected primates, including the deadly Herpes B virus.

December 2000 – The USDA launches an official investigation into the death of Ray.

January 2000 – TCF president Ronald Couch, who had worked for Coulston for almost ten years, leaves the lab. He is the second president to leave in nine months.

Present - NIH continues its illegal bailout of the lab with over $1.93 million awarded for this purpose to date. USDA has yet to file charges against TCF for the death of Donna; its official investigation into Ray's death is pending as well.

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