Monkeys died as lab overheated

Thirty-two research monkeys died because the laboratory overheated, a drug company said. Charles River Laboratories Inc. of Wilmington, Mass., said that the monkeys died in the Sparks lab on May 28 and that it reported the problem immediately.

But Kathy Guillermo of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the government didn’t open an inquiry until PETA’s complaint in July.

“That monkeys were literally cooked to death by a heating system failure, as a whistle-blower alleges, shows that the facility did not even have a simple alarm system in place to alert staff to the malfunction,” she said.

The company blamed human errors.