Primate Center Director in Race for Dubious Distinction of Abusing Animals
For Immediate Release:
May 18, 2011
Contact:
Robbyn Brooks 202-483-7382
San Antonio — In "recognition" of his cruel work that involves tormenting and sometimes killing chimpanzees, baboons, and opossums in infectious disease and diet experiments, John VandeBerg, director of the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC), has been nominated for PETA's May 2011 "Vivisector of the Month" contest. Vivisectors are people who experiment on live animals, and visitors to PETA's blog can vote for VandeBerg in a contest to determine the very worst of the worst vivisectors. The "winner" will be announced on May 31 and will receive a prize from PETA to commemorate his cruelty.
"Unfortunately, mad scientists aren't just characters in B-movies," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. ""Experimenters like VandeBerg are all too real—and so is the misery they subject animals to."
The SNPRC is one of the last laboratories in the world that still torments chimpanzees—humans' closest living relatives—in cruel and invasive experiments. VandeBerg has even petitioned the federal government to remove hundreds more of these extremely social, intelligent individuals from retirement in New Mexico and send them to SNPRC, where they would be kept in barren cages for use in infectious disease experiments—even though they would suffer immensely in these conditions and even though scientists around the world agree that chimpanzees are poor models for studying human diseases. In other experiments, VandeBerg feeds baboons and opossums diets that consist of 40 percent lard in order to induce obesity and heart disease.
In PETA's contest, VandeBerg faces stiff competition from University of Wisconsin–Madison experimenter Aleksey Sobakin, who has placed hundreds of sheep in a decompression chamber, causing them to suffer crippling joint pain, seizures, nausea, paralysis, vomiting, and burning, deep chest pain. Many of the sheep used in the experiments have been killed in violation of Wisconsin cruelty-to-animals law.
For more information and to cast a vote, please visit PETA.org or click here.