Did Your Donation Pay to Abuse These Monkeys?
Look closely. That’s not a tail! This pregnant monkey is tetheredto her cage by a tube of wires implanted in her back and into her uterus.
Instead of funding more prenatal care and other programs proven to have saved newborns and prevent birth defects, the March of Dimes wastes nearly a million dollars every year on cruel animal experiments.
PETA has learned that the charity has given almost $200,000 to experimenters at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center —a laboratory notorious for its poor treatment of monkeys.

The Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, or ORPRC, was most recently in the headlines for “creating” ANDi, a tiny genetically altered monkey (see box). But a whistleblower’s recent report about this facility depicts a horror chamber for animals.

Here’s what the whistleblower saw:

• Just two technicians were assigned to care for more than 1,500 rhesus monkeys.

• Mistakes, such as giving injections to the wrong monkeys, were common, leading to discomfort, stress and inaccurate data.

• Dangerous, painful infections including listeriosis and shigellosis raged out of control for months after four sick monkeys were placed with healthy ones to make room for a new shipment of animals. In the winter of 1999, “a listeria epidemic grew until babies were miscarried and monkeys were dying daily. At the worst point, eight monkeys died in one weekend.”

These intelligent, socially complex primates are forced to live in tiny cages measuring 4.3 cubic feet-just enough space to turn circles out of frustration and loneliness. Videotape footage also shows some monkeys who have given up in despair. One monkey, isolated in a cage by herself, looks at the camera, then tucks her head beneath her arm and curls up in a fetal position in the corner of her small, barren space. Such sad, strange behavior is “normal” at ORPRC, reports the whistleblower, who daily witnessed monkeys pacing, rocking, drinking their own urine, playing with and eating their own feces, pulling out their own hair, and biting and attacking themselves. Baby monkeys who have been torn from their mothers clutch each other, fear in their eyes, trying to find comfort. Male monkeys are restrained and forced to ejaculate electrically by means of a shock so painful that they try to bite handlers in order to escape, according to the whistleblower’s report.

But the March of Dimes has ignored the evidence of animal suffering at ORPRC. The charity gave $191,160 to fund an experiment headed by Miles J. Novy at ORPRC in which pregnant rhesus monkeys are given intrauterine infections and hormones in order to study premature birth. According to the whistleblower, Novy implants wires into the unborn babies and then forces the mothers to wear restraint jackets to keep the hardware in place for the duration of the pregnancy.
Experimenter Miles J. Novy implants wires into fetuses in the wombs of pregnant monkeys. The mothers are tied to their cages by wires protruding from their backs.
Novy apparently doesn’t see these monkeys as frightened living beings-he calls them “maternal fetal preparations.”
Differences between humans and monkeys make any results questionable, and the suffering of the monkeys forcibly impregnated and then denied even the comfort of their own babies is almost unimaginable. The March of Dimes has so far refused to comment on its support of this experiment and hasn’t even tried to excuse its refusal to use funds more wisely. Providing funds for prenatal care to the 1.2 million women who need it every year could prevent an estimated 25% of all infant deaths-yet the March of Dimes continues to dump money into animal suffering.
Please help us convince the March of Dimes to use its funds to help people, instead of hurting animals.

ANDi: Bad, sad “science”
ANDi (“inserted DNA” abbreviated backwards) was the sole survivor of 40 embryos implanted in rhesus monkeys in an attempt to create a genetically engineered baby monkey with a jellyfish gene. Experts say that most disease genes are too large to insert into monkeys or are inactivated when the ORPRC method is used, so finding cures to diseases (one of the experimenter’s far-fetched claims) seems highly improbable. To view video footage of monkeys at ORPRC, go to HelpTheMonkeys.com.

“It is very unlikely from all we presently know about disease that there will be any breakthrough with this [creation of ANDi].”
—Dr. Rudolph Jaenisch, creator of the first transgenic mouse,
The New York Times, January 12, 2001
You Can Help

• Tell the March of Dimes president why you won’t be sending your money to her organization:
Jennifer Howse, President
March of Dimes
1275 Mamaroneck Ave.
White Plains, NY 10605
Tel.:1-888-MODIMES
(888-663-4637)
Fax: 914-428-8203
E-Mail: Jhowse@modimes.org

• Support cruelty-free charities. Visit MarchofCrimes.com, or
write to PETA for a list.

• Educate others. Show them the whisteblower’s videotape at HelpTheMonkeys.com.

Spare the dog and save the child

PETA's ear joined the March of Dimes charity walks, getting donors to EARmark their money for nonanimal tests.

PETA members turned out for the March of Dimes’ biggest fundraiser, WalkAmerica-but not to collect money. Instead, they handed out leaflets asking participants to earmark their donations for non-animal programs. Dozens of PETA members convinced their employers to pull out of March of Dimes fundraisers or to prohibit their donations from going to animal experiments. Please contact PETA if your employer sponsors March of Dimes fundraisers or other cruel charities. PETA’s ear joined the March of Dimes charity walks, getting donors to EARmark their money for non-animal tests.

Nobody doesn’t like !”
The Sara Lee Corporation, a corporate sponsor of the March of Dimes, has agreed to earmark its donations strictly for non-animal programs and to provide information about the March of Dimes animal experiments to all its 154,000 employees. Please send thanks to:

John H. Bryan, CEO
Sara Lee Corporation
Three First National Plz.
Chicago, IL 60602-4260
Tel.: 312-723-2600
Fax: 312-726-3712