After Primate Research Center Suspends Animal Experiments, Group Calls on NIH to Cut Lab's Federal Funding
For Immediate Release:
March 1, 2012
Contact:
Kristin Richards 202-483-7382
Boston -- Just days after the fourth negligent death of a monkey in less than two years occurred at Harvard Medical School's New England Primate Research Center—and one day after Harvard made the extraordinary decision to suspend all new experiments on animals at the laboratory—as reported in The Boston Globe, PETA has fired off a letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) urging the agency to investigate whether any federal funds were involved in the incidents and, if so, order Harvard to repay the taxpayer dollars in question as required by federal grants policy. PETA also asks that NIH exercise its authority to cut all funding for future experiments based on Harvard's ongoing failure to adhere to animal welfare laws.
"Taxpayers shouldn't have to fund animal abuse in Harvard laboratories, especially when the experimenters are breaking the law," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "PETA is urging the government to send a message that laboratories cannot thumb their noses at the law and expect Americans to pay for their misdeeds."
Harvard suspended all experiments at its laboratory this week after a cotton-top tamarin monkey was euthanized on Sunday, reportedly because of dehydration. There was no water bottle in the animal's cage. In the last two years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has cited Harvard's primate center—which confines 2,300 primates for cruel cocaine addiction and other experiments—for more than 20 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. These include the following:
- Negligent employees caused three nonhuman primates to become severely dehydrated, two of whom died.
- A primate's tibia and fibula were broken when his leg was smashed in a cage door by a careless employee.
- Staff members had to euthanize a primate after he was carelessly given an overdose of an anesthetic that caused kidney failure.
- A primate was scalded to death when his cage—with the animal locked inside—was run through a mechanical cage washer.
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