Washington Board of Health Rejects PETA’s Recommendation to Track Dangerous Communicable Diseases in Monkeys

Update (June 04, 2026):

The Washington State Board of Health chose to give powerful institutions—such as the University of Washington—a free pass to endanger public health today when it voted to reject PETA’s first-of-its-kind rulemaking petition, which would have required tracking of dangerous pathogens found in captive monkeys, including those at the Washington National Primate Research Center. The vote was unanimous, with one abstention. The state’s Secretary of Health seconded the motion to decline the petition.

PETA, Northwest Animal Rights Network, and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine gathered 30,000 petition signatures and delivered them to the meeting by presenting a monkey statue covered in the signatures.

PETA has shown that dangerous pathogens already circulate in primate laboratories, and refusing to track them does not make them disappear. A disease does not become less relevant to public health simply because it is detected in a monkey instead of a human. By declining to close this reporting gap, the board has chosen to look away from a known blind spot rather than address it.

Representatives from numerous state agencies who spoke said the current system already provides multiple layers of oversight to protect public health and recommended against approving the rule change.

The board’s decision means that the University of Washington, which runs the primate center, can continue ignoring the contagious diseases in captive monkeys that it already tracks in humans.

You can still help monkeys by urging the University of Washington to close its primate center:

And if you’re in the U.S., please urge your representative to cosponsor the PRIMATE Act, which would ban the importation of monkeys destined for laboratories or their suppliers:

Original post:

Frequent detection of nasty diseases among monkeys caged at the University of Washington’s National Primate Research Center, which recently dropped “Primate” from its name, pose a direct threat to public health.

Cases of Shigella, Campylobacter, and Salmonella, all highly contagious pathogens capable of infecting humans, have been documented in monkeys at the center. These pathogens can cause severe bacterial infections, accompanied by diarrhea, vomiting, fever, and/or stomach pain in humans.

Yet the Washington State Board of Health does not require reporting of these infections when they occur in monkeys; reporting is only required when they are detected in humans. The result is a double standard: the same pathogens are tracked once they reach people, but not while they are circulating and amplifying inside a large primate facility physically connected to a major medical center.

PETA aims to close that gap.

PETA, Northwest Animal Rights Network, and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine submitted a first-of-its-kind petition urging the Washington State Board of Health to require mandatory reporting of contagious diseases detected in primates used for experimentation.

The petition asks the board to update its administrative code to begin tracking dangerous pathogens detected in the center’s monkeys. The board now has 60 days to decide how to proceed.

While it’s surprising that the state health board doesn’t track serious monkey infections, it’s simply confounding, given that the University of Washington Medical Center is physically connected to buildings caging monkeys. The two facilities share hallways and air systems. Staff move through both facilities.

PETA has identified evidence—published years ago—that the center’s staff have contracted Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from monkeys, confirming that this pathogen is present in the colony and that transmission to humans has already occurred. The condition can cause skin infections and other severe problems. Plus, a university representative previously admitted that “virtually everyone” gets ill within their first six months working at the center because of exposure to infectious diseases and the amount of fecal matter in the air.