PETA Global Issue 3

“A necropsy diagnosis to determine cause of death was not possible due to the condition of the remains.” – From a USDA inspection report citing the MD Anderson Cancer Center after the death of a monkey who was left in a cage that was run through a cagewashing machine and died.

Not ‘Just’ Mice and Rats, but Individuals Over 95% of animals abused in experiments are mice and rats: Millions of these small mammals – who can feel pain just as acutely as you or I can – are killed every year. In the US, they are not even considered animals under federal law. All over the world, mice and rats are poisoned in toxicology tests, burned on hot plates, tormented and bullied to cause depression and psychosis, electroshocked in pain studies, addicted to cocaine, intentionally given cancer, injected with human cells in Frankenstein-like genetic-manipulation experiments, and much more. Used and Abused PETA scientists have analyzed hundreds of reports documenting abuse of mice and rats at top US universities. Over the course of just 27 months, these institutions racked up 430 violations of government guidelines. Mice and rats were left to starve when workers didn’t feed them, drowned when watering devices malfunctioned, and thrown into freezers and suffocated while still alive. Primate Prisons PETA has sent eyewitnesses into some of the biggest primate laboratories in the world. The videos shot inside paint a bleak picture: monkeys imprisoned in barren steel cages or concrete-floored pens, rocking incessantly or pulling out their own fur in despair. They are starved, infected with diseases, poisoned, and psychologically tortured – often for decades. At Primate Products, Inc., a massive breeding facility in Florida, monkeys have been left outside in all kinds of weather, leading to frostbite and even death from

exposure. One monkey looked as if she’d been in a boxing match after a worker whacked her head against a bar in a pen. At Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories, a Japanese owned contract laboratory, a whistleblower saw workers grab, throw, and slam monkeys down so violently that they sustained bruises, bloodied noses, and broken fingers, toes, and tails. In hideous experiments at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, monkeys were starved in order to make them “voluntarily” consume alcohol and then killed to determine the effects on their organs, which have already been widely studied and are well known. PETA exposés of these and many other facilities have led to government investigations, citations, and fines, but there’s much more work to be done. Shuttering the Labs After years of PETA protests and formal complaints, Harvard University closed its controversial primate laboratory in 2015. Last year, after PETA collected 100,000 signatures and delivered them to politicians, the Dutch Parliament voted to phase out experiments at Europe’s largest primate-testing laboratory in the Netherlands and is moving toward ending all animal tests. After being deemed “largely unnecessary,” experiments on chimpanzees have ended worldwide. If experiments on chimpanzees – our closest relatives, with whom we share more than 98% of our DNA – are pointless, how can experiments on other primates – or any other animals – be justified?

EYEWITNESS

DANIEL ENGBER once thought that he might pursue a career as an experimenter. In an article that he wrote for Sate , he talked about returning to visit the monkey who had been “assigned” to him in graduate school: My research monkey had a pink face, dark eyes, sandy fur, and a 2-inch titanium rod screwed into the top of his skull. His name was C ayton. … In all the time IŸd been gone, C ayton had lived in the same room, on the same feeding schedule, and with many of the same neighbors. Since weŸd ast seen each other, IŸd moved across the country twice, quit graduate school, and become a journalist. … For C ayton, though, nothing has changed. Every day or two, heŸs carted off to a room painted all in b ack, and his head is fixed in p ace by the post that still protrudes from his skull. He sits there as always, staring at targets on a computer screen. When he moves his eyes the way heŸs supposed to, he gets a droplet of Tang as a reward.

Global 17