By Calvin Palmer
The owner of Travis, the 200-pound chimpanzee that mauled a Connecticut woman, disputes police reports that she gave the animal a drug to calm him down.
Sandra Herold said today the she “never, ever” gave the drug Xanax to her 14-year-old pet chimpanzee.
Travis, a former star of TV ads for Old Navy and Coca-Cola, attacked Herold’s friend, 55-year-old Charla Nash, when she came to visit on Monday.
The chimp badly mauled Nash and left her severely injured.
Stamford Police said Herold told them that earlier on Monday she gave Travis Xanax in some tea to calm him down because he seemed agitated.
Dr. Emil Coccaro, chief of psychiatry at the University of Chicago Medical Center says the anti-anxiety drug can lead to aggression in people who are unstable to begin with.
“Xanax could have made him worse,” if human studies are any indication, Coccaro said.
[Based on a report by the Associated Press.]
Calvin Palmer's Weblog 
So sad that she gave Xanax to Chimp. This is what caused the agression in him.
So sad that Chimp was killed. It was not his fault that he was given a drug that he was obviously allergic to, and caused his agression.