PETA Applauds Congresswoman’s Request to Secretary Kennedy to Suspend Primate Imports

For Immediate Release:
March 5, 2026

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Science Advisor on Primate Experimentation, Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel, regarding Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, R-New York, urging U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. to immediately suspend primate imports for experimentation:

PETA fully supports Rep. Malliotakis’ request to ban the importation of monkeys. Earlier this year, we and PETA honorary board member and New Yorker Edie Falco met with the congresswoman to share a rare look inside this trade and discuss the serious disease risks it poses, and we are encouraged that she is now pressing HHS to address them. For years, PETA has documented these risks and called on HHS and the CDC to shut down primate imports. Our concerns intensified after public records revealed that monkeys exported from Southeast Asia and imported into U.S. facilities were carrying a bacterium classified as a Tier 1 select agent, one of the most dangerous pathogens identified for potential use in bioterrorism. Novel strains of tuberculosis, as well as malaria, hepatitis, and other infectious diseases are also being imported with the monkeys caught up in this deadly trade. These pathogens pose a real and present danger when the United States imports tens of thousands of primates each year and disperses them to facilities across the country under a system that has repeatedly failed to detect or control dangerous infections.

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 PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.