- Dr. Elizabeth Jane Goldentyer named APHIS Director of Animal Care. But what we found was very disturbing.

Dr. Elizabeth Jane Goldentyer

A look into the recent promotion of the USDA/APHIS Deputy Director over Animal Care, just after she was hammered by a Federal Judge for lying, abuse of authority, direct intents to cause harm to licensees.

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To better understand Dr. Elizabeth Jane Goldentyer, (Betty) one should acquaint themselves with a little of her past.  Now at 63 years old, Dr. Goldentyer was promoted to Deputy Director of Animal Care within USDA/APHIS, in July 2017.  The USDA quietly promoted her in July 2017 but did not make it publically known until September 25, 2017.

Dr. Goldentyer was the second in command just under Bernadette Juarez who was the Director of Animal Care until this summer (2019) when she was transferred out of Animal Care, thus leaving Dr. Goldentyer as “acting’  Director of Animal Care.

The USDA seems to like hiring these so called “veterinarians” right out of school, with no real practical experience in animal medicine. Since graduating from Tufts University, (Medford , MA) and first becoming a veterinarian in 1983, we were unable to locate any solid practical medical practice experience for Goldentyer.  However her and Juarez were, and believed to still be heavily involved in the humane society.  

This was no real surprise, since Goldentyer talked in detail during an interview, “People & Perspectives: Betty Goldentyer - Designing Research with Animal Use in Mind”, January 13, 2015 and about her work inside the humane society and how it got her prepared for her work inside USDA/APHIS.  After all,  those such as the Humane Society of the United States have clear, written goals on how they want to eliminate all zoo’s in the world. Even more troubling was the long clear mission-creep that USDA/APHIS are deploying, as we further found in reading a very good article  “HAS THE HSUS “HIJACKED” THE APHIS OFFICE OF ENFORCEMENT?!”

But what really shocked us was how Federal Judges have caught Dr. Goldentyer in her own web of lies, set-up’s, pre-trageting inspection reports on licensees, and a whole slew of other sheangagians.  Recently obtained court documents showed the following:

This case, (Caudill, Kalmanson, et. al, Docket 10-0416, Decision and Order as to Mitchell Kalmanson) with devastating findings against APHIS from their own Chief Administrative Law Judge,  Peter M. Davenport found the following:

-“APHIS [directed by Dr. Goldentyer] was conducting biased investigations initiated and conducted with the obvious intent according to a predetermined conclusion.” [page 4]

-“Regional Director [ Dr. Goldentyer]  refused to take licensees telephone calls for assistance and feel under no obligation to assist licensees by providing guidance”. [page 7]

-“Investigations directed [ by Dr. Goldentyer] against licensees are inappropriately influenced an unacceptably biased from their onsets as APHIS personnel involved in preparing a special orders by other directors/supervisors and her staff include language and reports of alleged violations that were not present. All in an effort to produce pre-concluded results from such inspections.” [page 7]

-“The Regional Director [ Dr. Goldentyer at that time] erroneously improper conduct produced such a thoroughly flawed investigation that such scant reliance should never be placed on such an inspection or investigation.” [page 8]

-“Inspectors instructed [ by Dr. Goldentyer] to mark inspections as “routine” inspections of licensees. Despite the benign and innocuous characterization given to the inspection, it is clear from such testimony in this case concerning the elaborate preparation for it, that it was anything but routine.” [page 8]

-“[Dr. Goldentyer],  APHIS accused of conducting inspections on the licensee that were actions it intended devastatingly destructive damage to the licensee.” [page 10]

-“ a [sic] licensee was subject to an improperly conducted investigations by individuals [from APHIS by Dr. Goldentyer] misusing the authority vested in them, the result of which was professional embarrassment and significant financial loss.” [page 12]

-Chief Administrative Law Review Judge confirms “that animal welfare act considers a license, once granted, contained no restrictive endorsements or limitations as to what animals may be exhibited on the face of its license.” [page 12] Dr. Goldentyer instructed her inspectors routinely to tell licensees that obtain other animals that they are not licensed for such animals, which no such regulations exist.

-“APHIS continuously scrutinizes through unfair practices the determination of a licensees’ asked variance when concerning large carnivores, elephants, marine mammals, etc. as far as the experience level of a licensee APHIS is unable to provide any testimony concerning the extent of the evaluation process, it is unclear whether the additional documentation of a licensees background was actually examined or simply ignored. It is clear that none of the references were contacted.” [page 15] Note: This seems to be the exact same practice that the IRS used in the current denials of certain non-profit’s status request.

-“The abuse of authority in directing that on substantiated language placed in inspection reports and questionable review of licensees qualifications to handle felids was the proximate cause of the licensee experiencing the loss of control of animals she had purchased and the revenue generated by their exhibition. “ [page 16]

-Subsequently the Chief Administrative Law Review Judge in this case finds that the licensee in fact does have the experience to handling care for such animals and continuously notes APHIS inability to prove otherwise or to explain the procedure on how such experience is validated confirmed or otherwise. [page 16]

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So, with this type of history, APHIS rewards

this action with a big promotion?  

On December 5, 2019, USDA/APHIS announced the following:

Dear Stakeholders:

I am pleased to announce that effective immediately, Dr. Betty Goldentyer will officially become Animal Care’s (AC) Deputy Administrator, a position she’s been acting in since August 2019 when the program’s previous Deputy Administrator, Bernadette Juarez, moved to APHIS' Biotechnology Regulatory Services program.

Betty brings a wealth of veterinary knowledge and skills, as well as both hands-on and managerial experience to this new role. She’s a graduate of Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. Before joining AC in 1988, Betty worked as a veterinarian in a small animal practice and then a humane society in Chicago. She came to AC as a field inspector in Wisconsin and is an alumnus of APHIS’ prestigious Public Veterinary Career Program (PVPC), which the agency started in the mid-1980s to meet the need for highly-skilled and well-trained public veterinarians.

Betty then became a regional AC specialist and supervisor in Tampa, FL. She moved to Raleigh in 2007 to be AC’s Eastern Regional Director and came to Riverdale in July 2017 as AC’s Associate Deputy Administrator.

During her career, Betty made it a priority to make AC processes more streamlined and efficient for the program and its stakeholders. For instance, biomedical research facilities need to submit an annual summary of their animal use to AC. Betty led the project to make reporting easier and more accurate resulting in an Online Annual Report system which is a model for the modernization of AC’s information technology systems.

She currently leads USDA’s response to the 21st Century Cures Act.  This is an ongoing effort to reduce the regulatory burden on scientific researchers while maintaining scientific integrity and humane animal care.  Betty’s efforts have resulted in broad support for the Cures Act Report to Congress.

I want to thank Betty for her dedication to APHIS and her willingness to take on this new role. Many of you may already know Betty from her long tenure in AC, but for those who may not, I hope you’ll have the chance to meet her in the coming months.

Sincerely,

Kevin Shea

APHS Administrator

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