This year, we have something to celebrate as we commemorate World Week for Animals in Laboratories. After 30 years of pressure from PETA and other organizations, Harvard Medical School's New England Primate Research Center is shutting its doors. This milestone victory proves that even the mightiest can fall—or do better, move on, or modernize. And it illustrates why it is crucial that animal advocates keep working to end the suffering of animals in laboratories. 

One group of animal rights advocates in Italy made headlines this week when they occupied a laboratory at the University of Milan and removed many of the mice and rabbits who were caged there. Closer to home, there are numerous easy actions that any of us can take to help animals in laboratories:

1. Update your Facebook cover photo to a photo of an animal in a laboratory (try one of these), and ask your Facebook friends to purchase only cruelty-free cosmetics.
2. Make it harder for experimenters to get their hands on animals by asking Air France, one of the few airlines that will still transport primates to be used in experiments, to stop profiting from cruelty.
3. Be sure to purchase only cosmetics, personal-care products, and household cleaners from companies that don't test on animals. PETA's cruelty-free shopping guide makes it easy. And send companies that do test on animals a quick e-mail to let them know why you won't be purchasing from them.
4. Check this map to see if your state, city, school district, or college has a policy allowing students to opt out of cruel animal dissection. If so, be sure to request a humane teaching method when the time comes. If there isn't a policy yet, get one created to save the lives of some of the millions of animals killed for dissection every year.
5. Join PETA's e-mail drive to get the deadly cat laboratories at the University of Wisconsin–Madison shut down.

Please tweet this post to encourage your Twitter followers to get active for animals in laboratories, too. We can win the campaign to end the use of animals in laboratories, and we must. Millions of animals need us to.

The photograph is shocking. Dead monkeys, piled high in garbage cans. If an ordinary picture is worth a thousand words, this one screams them in horror. Even so, everyone should see it because it deserves to become the image that immediately springs to mind when thinking about primates in laboratories and the airlines responsible for transporting them to their deaths.

A Waste of Lives

The photo comes from a new investigation by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) documenting how Noveprim—a company owned in large part by Covance—has been killing off monkeys simply because they are not the size that experimenters desire. Noveprim abducts wild monkeys from their homes on the tiny island of Mauritius for breeding and sale to laboratories in the U.K. and the U.S.

The sight of the lifeless monkeys discarded like crumpled paper speaks volumes about the experimentation industry's absolute disregard for animals' lives. The monkeys were reportedly healthy, so at a minimum, Noveprim could have had the decency to release them back into the wild—but decency would likely be a hindrance to snatching and trafficking living beings.

Rationalizations Are the Real Rubbish

Air France is reported to be the only airline still shipping primates to laboratories from Mauritius. Earlier this year, PETA was successful in stopping one such shipment, and this new investigation underscores why Air France should ground these flights permanently.

What You Can Do

Please join PETA in urging Air France and other airlines that still ship monkeys who have been ripped from their homes to laboratories where they will be tormented and killed to wash their hands of the whole dirty—and deadly—business.

When we told you that Air France was planning to ship 60 monkeys to the notorious Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories (SNBL) this week, you came through with tens of thousands of e-mails, Facebook posts, tweets, and phone calls—and thanks to your quick action, Air France has now confirmed that the shipment has been canceled!

Just Say Non to Shipping Primates to Labs

Immediately upon learning that the monkeys were to be shipped from a Bioculture-owned monkey farm on the African island of Mauritius to Paris and then on to Chicago, where they'd be loaded onto a truck bound for a facility operated by SNBL, PETA got in touch with key executives at Air France urging them to cancel the shipment.

But with so little time to persuade Air France to do the right thing, PETA swiftly appealed to members and supporters to make sure that the airline got the message. And did it ever—so many of you contacted Air France that the company stopped accepting public comments on two of its high-profile Facebook pages and shut down its corporate phone lines!

While Air France's decision to cancel this shipment is great news, PETA is now encouraging the French flag carrier to join the majority of leading airlines in putting formal policies in place prohibiting all future shipments of primates to laboratories.

How You Can Help Keep Primates Out of Labs

Please join PETA in urging the airline industry to stop transporting primates destined for cruel experiment.