Baboon Bleeds to Death at University of Maryland; PETA Files Complaint With Feds

For Immediate Release:
May 30, 2024

Contact:
Brandi Pharris 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna regarding a new inspection report posted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture against the University of Maryland–Baltimore for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, including one critical violation. The report documents that a baboon bled to death, staff neglected to feed baboons adequately for two consecutive days, and the school failed to give postoperative pain relief to 400 rabbits. It also documents the suffering of baboons likely used in experiments by Eugene Albrecht, whose experiments at the university involve repeatedly impregnating olive baboons, injecting them with hormones, and performing cesarean sections to remove fetuses. The university had previously been cited by the feds for violations related to Albrecht’s experiments.

The abject failure of the University of Maryland–Baltimore to rise even to the mediocrity demanded by federal animal welfare regulations shows that the school doesn’t deserve another penny of public tax money. In the latest incidents, a baboon was able to pull an IV line into a cage, bite through it, and bleed to death. According to the USDA’s report, other baboons weren’t fed for two days and experimenters failed to administer pain relief to 400 rabbits after an invasive surgery.

The National Institutes of Health doled out more than $215 million to the university in 2023 alone, and nearly half of that sum is estimated to fund experiments on animals. The agency must pull its funding now.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.