Last month, a series of leaked photos of macaque monkeys housed by a Florida laboratory caused a stir. The pictures showed several monkeys with gaping wounds, prompting protests by animal-rights activists, including the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which wrote GlaxoSmithKline because the drugmaker had done business with the lab, called Primate Products (
back story).
At the time, Primate Products ceo Don Bradford told the NBC affiliate station in Miami that the conditions depicted in the photos were not caused by medical testing, but due to injuries caused by the animals themselves, and that the monkeys have since healed. These monkeys are known to act aggressively toward one another. In any event, a complaint was filed with the US Department of Agriculture, which oversees animal welfare for research purposes.
Yesterday, the USDA posted on its web site the results of its inspection, which took place just prior to our previous item about this issue. The upshot? The agency did not find any 'non-compliant' issues (look here).
"It was a clean inspection report," USDA spokesman Dave Sacks tells us. "There was nothing found that was against animal welfare regulations…Group housing of primates is allowed in the animal welfare act regulations….with the mindset that’s more closely adapted to how they live in the wild. These animals do various fighting among themselves for hierarchy….so that will carry through to how they are housed…But if in those housing situations, if there is a monkey that gets injured, we require the faciltiy to provide adequate care."
For its part, PETA is not budging. "We are disappointed that the agency is not holding Primate Products accountable for the suffering that the mutilated monkeys in these chilling photos endured," Justin Goodman, PETA’s associate director for lab investigations, writes us. "However, the company will continue to draw the ire of compassionate people for the harm it causes animals as a matter of course, including building torture devices, having animals ripped from their homes and families in the wild, and selling them to lives of misery and pain in laboratories."
He also challenged the assumption offered by the USDA: "In the wild, monkeys do fight for social and evolutionary reasons, but severe attacks are not routine. The likelihood of violent fighting amongst captive primates is exacerbated dramatically when monkeys are not grouped appropriately and supervised adequately to insure that individuals are compatible."
15 Comments
"ripped from their..."
Yeah, umm, aren't these animals purpose bred for the company to sell to researchers? Do these self-appointed critics know *anything*?
El Picador, I don't know about the animals in question, but Primate Products has imported 240 macaques from China so far this year, and last year imported 800+ macaques from China. And even if the animals in this case were expressly bred for research (which is sad in and of itself), to start the colony, they at one time would have had to take animals from the wild. But whatever your views on animals for research, the fact is that animal research is unreliable for extrapolation to insights about humans, which is one reason why this type of research is being phased out and there is an effort from the U.S. government to move towards more reliable research that utilizes things like human cells and tissues.
El Picador,
Primate Products' own webpage states that they import wild-caught primates from the islands of St. Kitts and Mauritius.
"more reliable research that utilizes things like human cells and tissues"
Are you kidding?
"Too much monkey business".
Gotta go, as I am scheduled for work at a busy corner. Grinder just fixed and, shined up the cup. I need the money before Obama gets it all!
"But whatever your views on animals for research, the fact is that animal research is unreliable for extrapolation to insights about humans" This is absolutely true. But your conclusion is absolutely false. Translation of animal data to human results is horrible -- but it is the best we have. The alternative is letting humans be the "monkeys" in drug trials.
“In the wild, monkeys do fight for social and evolutionary reasons, but severe attacks are not routine."
Such severe attacks are not routine among captive socially housed Rhesus macaques either, which is why Primate Products documented this rare event for training purposes.
Animal research plays an enormously important role in advancing medicine, both through improving our understanding of basic biological processes and in developing and evaluating potential treatments. This is why it it is crucial to new areas of research such as tissue engineering, stem cell medicine, gene therapy, nanotech drugs, and in learning about the genetic networks that control vital processes in order to translate the knowledge we are gaining about the human genome into personalized medicine.
I would be more sympathetic to those who oppose animal research, if when they or their loved ones were ill, they would refuse all treatments that owed in part of their development to animal research, but in my experience, none do.
Apart from the torture and murder of defenseless animals, vivisection also results in countless false positives and false negatives. If one wants pseudoscience and sadism, vivisection is without a doubt the best option.
With all due respect, please remember that people willing to harm animals will eventually harm human beings. There is something disturbing about the psyches of those who deliberately inflict pain on others. Animal testing is heading toward the graveyard of history ... More and more people avoid anything we know has been tested on animals, from cosmetics, to household chemicals, to medication. Consumers have choices, and we will use our choices to stop funding this cruelty. While we may not be able to immediately stop all use of animal-tested products, we are moving steadily in that direction through our choices. We are actively seeking alternatives to animal testing-based treatments. We do not want cures or studies based on brutal, sick, systemic violence toward animals. It's a moral question. Let me reiterate: if you are willing to do cruel things to an animal (I'm sure you can rationalize it), then you are much more likely to do cruel things to human beings. Hurting a conscious, pain-feeling being is cruel. If you try to justify it, you can justify all sorts of things. It's a slippery slope. Ask human volunteers to participate in your studies, give them full information, and abide by their decisions. If you can't get a human to consent to the experiment after full disclosure, then you can't do the experiment. Do the right thing.
Maria,
The consumer products that you have mentioned all have to go through tox testing at some time or another. All chemicals have to be proven to be safe for human use through animal testing. The companies either subcontract this testing out or say that the final product has not been tested on animals (but all of the ingredients have to be tested) or they use products that have previously been tested.
As for your insinuation that people that do animal testing are sadistic, you could not be further from the truth. As someone who has formerly done this work, I have had plenty of animals as pets and have never been "sadistic". I think you mean the people that "enjoy" this work would be sadistic. I did my work with the utmost respect for the animals that were being used, but I certainly gained no satisfaction from the work (hence why I do not do it anymore).
If you don't want to support companies that do animal testing, then stop using any product (food, pharmaceutical, personal hygiene product, etc) with a chemical name in it, until then quit being a hypocrite.
Josh, Did you stop tox testing on animals because you couldn't stomach it? If so, perhaps its because you have a normal, healthy psyche and have compassion. It's not normal to be able to inflict harm on defenseless creatures without feeling deep pain yourself. Sociopaths won't recognize this kind of pain. They are completely confused as to why anyone would try to interfere with 'scientific progress' because of a moral dilemma. I wonder how many sociopaths are in the animal testing labs of the world? Seriously. The best medication would be one tested on tissue cultures and human volunteers. If a test is too painful, then just do not do it.
Seriously, sometimes I've seen photos like the one above and just marvel that a human being is capable of such horror. I am clearly not a scientist, I just thought that it would help to have consumer feedback. I see these photos and I am afraid of the people who did this to these animals. I hope they are not neighbors or people I know, because I would lose respect for them.
Maria,
I stopped doing the work for a number of reasons. I would say that the majority of the people that I worked with did the work to provide the best care for the animals, not to injure or "torture" the animals. Obviously you aren't a psychologist either, since you seem to speaking out about something you also know nothing about (i.e. sociopaths). Most of the people I remember working with did not "enjoy" their work the way that a true sociopath would.
People did not do this to the animals, the animals did this to each other, which is natural behavior in the wild. I also lose respect for people that have preassumed thoughts on something or someone of which they know nothing about. Read the article....don't just jump to your own preconcieved notions.
I did read the article. That's why I commented. This doesn't seem to be natural behavior at all.
UNFORTUNATELY,WE COULD DEBATE ALL DAY ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT THESE ANIMAL TESTING FACILITIES HURT THE ANIMALS OR NOT.WHAT CONCERNS ME IS THAT YOU CAN TAKE A LOOK AT THE PICTURES OF THE TECHNIQUES AND PROCEDURES THAT ARE USED ON THESE ANIMALS AND BELIEVE THAT WHAT IS GOING ON IS OKAY!ARE YOU EVEN AWARE OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES IN RESEARCH SCIENCE? A SIMULATOR IS NOW AVAILABLE THAT PRODUCES THE SAME RESULTS.WE NO LONGER HAVE TO USE LIVE ANIMALS. NOW IT IS JUST A MATTER OF THE INITIAL COST OF THE MACHINE.