A primate at a Covance primate testing lab.

Update: After receiving PETA's request for an investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that Bristol-Myers Squibb was to blame for the hanging death of the monkey and cited the company for violating the Animal Welfare Act.

 As if being locked inside a laboratory and treated like a living test tube weren't torture enough, a whistleblower informed PETA that a monkey and a rat were recently scalded to death at pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb's laboratory in Pennington, New Jersey. Their cages were run through the high-pressure cage washer with the animals still inside, causing the trapped animals intense agony and terror as the blistering-hot water burned their flesh.

Also according to the whistleblower, another monkey strangled to death after she was attached to the front of her cage, apparently by some sort of leash, and then left unattended. All three of these tragic deaths, which reportedly occurred over a six-month period, could have been easily prevented. So what's going on at Bristol-Myers?

A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection report substantiates the whistleblower's report of a monkey dying in the cage washer, and based on this, PETA suspects that the other allegations are also true. But it's Bristol-Myers Squibb's turn to be in hot water now: PETA has submitted complaints to the USDA and the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, asking both to investigate and hit the multibillion-dollar company where it hurts—in its bank account—if these allegations are true.

But what the pharma giant really must do is stop subjecting tens of thousands of dogs, rabbits, mice, rats, and monkeys to imprisonment, pain, and death. PETA, which holds stock in Bristol-Myers Squibb specifically for the purpose of addressing the company's board and stockholders, has submitted a shareholder resolution urging it to reduce the company's reliance on animal tests by switching to modern, non-animal methods and to provide greater transparency of its animal testing practices. Please, click here to ask Bristol-Myers Squibb's CEO to take personal responsibility for making sure that these recommendations are implemented.

You don't have to be a Rhodes Scholar to know that all mammals need water to survive, yet this basic biology principle is apparently lost on the clever folks at Harvard. For the second time in three months, a monkey has died of dehydration at the Ivy League institution: On Sunday, an elderly cotton-top tamarin was euthanized at Harvard Medical School (HMS) after it was discovered that the monkey's cage had no water bottle, an inexcusable oversight that led the university to suspend new experiments at its New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC).

The monkey's death came on the same day that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) made public an inspection report that revealed three other incidents involving the neglectful endangerment of monkeys at the facility in the past three months, including another monkey's death. This recent series of deaths has prompted PETA to call on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to suspend all funding to HMS and NEPRC and to demand a refund of any grant money spent on activity that violated federal animal protection laws, which is required by federal grant guidelines.

Milo was imprisoned at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), a facility where PETA conducted a shocking undercover investigation

A History of Violations

The USDA has cited HMS and NEPRC for more than 20 violations of the Animal Welfare Act during the past two years, including the following incidents involving serious injuries and deaths:

• In January of this year, two primates became severely dehydrated and one died. In another incident, a primate suffered two broken bones when his leg was smashed in a heavy cage door. Another primate suffered serious foot injuries after he and others escaped from improperly secured cages.

• In December 2011, a staff member caught an escaped primate with a net, performed an imaging procedure on him, and upon returning the animal to his cage, discovered that he had died.

• In July 2011, a primate had to be euthanized after he was given an overdose of an anesthetic that caused acute kidney failure.

• In June 2010, a primate was found dead in a cage after it was run through a scalding-hot mechanical cage washer.

What PETA is asking for isn't unprecedented. Other universities, including the University of Connecticut and the University of Michigan, have had to return thousands of dollars in grant money after PETA and others uncovered animal welfare violations. After all, it seems only reasonable that our hard-earned tax dollars shouldn't be paying for activity that violates the law.

How You Can Help

While the recent deaths of monkeys at Harvard appear to have resulted from carelessness, HMS and NEPRC confine 2,300 other primates and deliberately commit unspeakable horrors against them, such as drilling holes into their skulls and subjecting them to cocaine addiction experiments. Ask the NIH to stop funding this cruelty at Harvard and elsewhere.

Exciting news! Two more air carriers, TAM and Hainan Airlines, have announced that they will no longer transport primates for use in cruel laboratory experiments! PETA and other animal protection organizations put the pressure on the airlines after it was revealed that they were recently handling shipments of monkeys to laboratories in North America.

Richard Fisher | cc by 2.0

Now we're that much closer to stopping the transport of primates for use in experiments once and for all—but we're not there yet.

How You Can Help Keep Animals out of Laboratories

Please continue to tell the few remaining airlines that ship primates to laboratories—including Air France, China Eastern Airlines, and Continental Airlines—that cruelty should be grounded.

Ssppeeeddyy | cc by 2.0

A bit of good news from the Great White North: After years of pressure from animal rights activists—and after hearing from PETA recently—Air Canada, one of only two major North American airlines that still fly primates to laboratories, is taking steps to end the shipments. The airline has requested permission from the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) to enact a ban on transporting primates destined for experiments, a practice that the CTA currently requires Air Canada to engage in. PETA had been in contact with Air Canada about its policy as part of an international campaign to stop airlines from transporting primates to laboratories, where they will be caged, experimented on, and killed. 

Recently, PETA exposed appalling cruelty to monkeys at one of the largest importers of primates in the U.S.—Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories (SNBL) in Everett, Washington—after being contacted by a distraught worker there. The photos and video footage recorded by the whistleblower show sick, distressed monkeys suffering after being injected with chemicals and subjected to violent handling.

Please support the growing number of compassionate and progressive airlines—including Delta, American Airlines, and British Airways—that are saying "No" to primate abuse, and click here to ask the Canadian Transport Authority to grant Air Canada's request to ban the shipment of primates to labs.

In a dreadful experiment that sounds like a cross between Frankenstein and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, stem cells from multiple embryos were fused to create so-called "chimera" monkeys containing genetic material from all the embryos used. Vivisectors at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) cut into dozens of female rhesus monkeys to impregnate them, allowed their fetuses to develop, and then cut them open to kill the unborn monkeys and dissect them. Only two of the female monkeys were allowed to carry the babies to full term and give birth. Like their mothers, these babies now will serve a life sentence at this monkey prison, where two PETA undercover investigations have exposed the horrific abuse of primates.

ONPRC is touting the births of the three genetically manipulated rhesus monkeys, but one has to wonder what the primates used in these experiments have been forced to endure in a facility with a long history of abuse. During a 2007 undercover investigation at ONPRC, PETA documented monkeys in constant fear and so traumatized by miserable laboratory conditions, including confinement to small, barren cages, that they paced ceaselessly and pulled out their own hair. And that's not even including the horrors intentionally inflicted on the animals during the experiments themselves.

In 2008, PETA obtained internal documents from ONPRC detailing further abuse and neglect, including that experimenters had accidentally performed surgery on the wrong monkey, repeatedly inflicted a painful procedure called "electro-ejaculation" on male monkeys, and refused to perform a Caesarean section on a sick monkey during a difficult labor (leading to the death of both mother and baby).

PETA's subsequent complaint to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) led the agency to cite ONPRC for three violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Since then, further USDA inspections have led to repeated citations. So why is ONPRC still being given millions of taxpayer dollars  to create chimeras and conduct other cruel and pointless experiments on these intelligent, sensitive animals?

Please click here to tell the National Institutes of Health that it's time to get out of the torture business by withdrawing funding from animal experiments at ONPRC.

After PETA released video footage sent to us by a whistleblower inside Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories (SNBL) in Everett, Washington, showing egregious abuse of monkeys inside the laboratory, area residents were so outraged that they decided to do something about it. More than two dozen residents, local PETA supporters, and members of Action for Animals held signs and chanted slogans outside SNBL during the morning commute, calling on the company to stop its mistreatment of animals and switch to humane, non-animal alternatives.

According to the whistleblower, monkeys at SNBL have their blood drawn so many times a day that their veins become damaged and workers dig and poke for a spot to draw blood as the monkeys scream in pain and try to jerk away. The whistleblower reported, "Eventually, many of the monkeys stop fighting and reacting … it is like the life is gone from them." Monkeys are also immobilized in restraint chairs for many hours while workers pump drugs into their bodies. They struggle to break free but sometimes collapse under the physical and emotional stress. Some of the monkeys never recover.

The protesters in Everett didn't get mad—they got active! You can, too, by clicking here to urge the airlines that are still delivering primates to SNBL and other laboratories to ground the practice.

Experts are calling on director Cameron Crowe to stop using primates as props in his films, like his upcoming We Bought a Zoo:

Director Cameron Crowe is getting an earful from world-famous primatologist Dr. Iqbal Malik, who sent a letter on PETA's behalf to the director of the upcoming film We Bought a Zoo, asking him to stop using animals in films.

© edelmar/ iStockPhoto.com

Despite being made aware of the suffering endured behind the scenes by performing primates, Crowe has made jokes about Crystal, a capuchin monkey used in the film. But there's nothing funny about ripping primates away from their protective mothers shortly after birth so that they can be trained to perform tricks. These highly social animals suffer from debilitating loneliness and depression when isolated from other monkeys as they typically are in the entertainment industry. In the letter, Dr. Malik asks Crowe to remember that "as 'performing' monkeys grow older, become sick, or are no longer useful to their trainers, most are discarded or sold into the pet trade."

As the astonishingly realistic computer-generated primates in Rise of the Planet of the Apes prove, directors have no excuse for playing a role in subjecting animals to a life of confinement and loneliness.

Go buy a ticket to Rise of the Planet of the Apes—I promise that you'll be glued to your seat.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

jasejc/cc by 2.0

 
The skies just got friendlier for primates of the nonhuman variety. American Airlines has publicly confirmed that it will no longer transport nonhuman primates to be used in experiments. In adding cruelty to its no-fly list, American Airlines joins British Airways, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Qantas, Delta Air Lines, Air China, Monarch Air Group, Amerijet, IBC Airways, and several other airlines in refusing to transport primates to facilities where they will be tormented and killed in experiments.

You may also recall that Lufthansa airlines agreed last year to stop transporting dogs and cats to laboratories after a PETA action alert generated an enormous response from concerned people.

You can help stop laboratory abuse at its source by asking the federal government to divert funding from cruel experiments on animals to modern non-animal methods and human-based clinical research.
 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

In his new movie Project Nim, which opens today in New York City and Chicago, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker James Marsh explores the tragic life of a chimpanzee, Nim Chimpsky, and the people who exploited him for their own selfish ends.

Born in a laboratory in the 1970s, Nim was taught American Sign Language as part of a project to show that it could be done. But that was just the beginning of Nim's odyssey. He was shuffled between homes, kept segregated from his own species, often caged and tethered, and eventually dumped onto a series of laboratories. Animal rights advocates fought to have him retired to a sanctuary and, for those of you who plan to see the movie, here's a spoiler alert: They were ultimately successful.

While Nim did learn sign language, the truly important lesson that he taught us is that nonhuman primates, like all other animals, desire and deserve the same freedom that human primates enjoy and that depriving them of it is devastating. Why, 30 years later, have we still not learned that lesson?

 
Written by Michelle Sherrow