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ShareAfter filing three formal complaints against Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc. (SCBT), on July 19, 2012, November 4, 2014, and August 7, 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) required that the company pay a $3.5 million penalty, cancelled its research registration, and revoked its dealer license.
In the past five years, the USDA has cited SCBT for approximately 40 violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which are outlined in the formal complaints, including:
- Allowing a goat to suffer for hours and then using a captive bolt gun to kill him when a veterinarian could not be located.
- Neglecting to provide continued veterinary care for a goat with a complete break in one of his legs. When USDA inspectors visited, the lower portion of the leg was moving independently.
- Failing to treat a goat who lost a quarter of his body weight because he had a swollen jaw and draining lesion from a rattlesnake bite to the face and was unable to eat.
- Failing to treat a severely ill goat who died during the USDA inspection. The inspectors noted that most likely the goat would have been successfully treated with antibiotics if the condition had been identified and treated in a timely manner.
- Repeatedly denying the existence of a facility that had been in use for years and housed more than 800 goats when asked by USDA inspectors if animals were housed in its location, thereby preventing the USDA from inspecting the facility and animals.