PETA Sues Writer of Magazine Story It Calls ‘False . . . Malicious’

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals contend the biomedical community has hit below the belt in a recent article in Washingtonian magazine about PETA founder Alex Pacheco, whose 1981 expose of conditions at a Silver Spring, Md., research lab led to the facility’s losing its federal funding.

A story in the February issue alleges, among other things, that Pacheco staged photographs used as evidence in the Silver Spring lab case, and that PETA has used funds for purposes that violate the organization’s status as a nonprofit, tax-exempt charitable group.

The 16-page article, titled “Beyond Cruelty,” was written by free-lancer Katie McCabe, a former English teacher who--the magazine made a point of noting in a biographical box--has made 18 speeches to scientific groups on the subject of animal rights for which she has received a total of $6,000 in honorariums.

The article created a considerable stir on Capitol Hill and is being used by animal rights opponents across the country--particularly those in the medical community-- to help make their case against the movement.

“I expect backlash, but I didn’t expect it to be (so) dirty. I didn’t expect outright lies,” said Ingrid Newkirk, a former chief of animal disease control for the District of Columbia who co-founded PETA with Pacheco and serves as its national director.

PETA has filed a $3-million lawsuit against McCabe in District of Columbia Superior Court, charging the writer with writing “false, defamatory and malicious statements” and with “malicious intent” to damage PETA’s reputation.

One of the photographs in question is of a macaque monkey named Domitian, who is shown hanging from clamps with his head pulled back and arms and legs outstretched in a lab restraining chair. The picture has been used in posters and other publicity material widely distributed by PETA and has become something of a movement icon of animal suffering at the hands of scientific researchers.

Pacheco, who gained admittance to the lab by taking a job there as an assistant and going in alone at night to document the abuse of the monkeys used in a study of spinal-cord injuries, contends the photograph of Domitian was taken during a routine experiment.

He also maintains that the allegations of financial misconduct in the article relied on two anonymous sources, both of whom are disgruntled former PETA employees who were “fired for cause.”

“I believe time will show that Ms. McCabe’s article was part of an attempt by those under siege for wrongdoing and heinous cruelties . . . to distract the public and the Congress from the pursuit of overdue reforms by trading in lies and distortions,” Pacheco said in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, which had the article included in its hearing record on a bill to stiffen penalties for lab break-ins and the like authored by the committee chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.)