Nightmarish Experiments at UW-Madison Would Deprive Monkeys of Sleep for Months

Time is running out to prevent tiny marmoset monkeys from being used in a depraved sleep-deprivation study that experimenters at the University of Wisconsin–Madison could start any minute. Your help to stop this is urgently needed!

Experimenters plan to blast marmosets with sounds as loud as a lawn mower for six minutes every 15 minutes all night long three nights a week for up to two months. The experiment is so cruel that it earned the highest pain classification possible.

PETA has urged the feds to yank the funding, and we filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But it appears the experiment is slated to start anyway. You can help stop it.

The Details

Every 15 minutes during the night, experimenters plan to blast the monkeys for six full minutes with noises as loud as a lawn mower. The monkeys would be startled awake as many as 46 times during the night for three consecutive nights. More details are available here.

This experiment would not add knowledge on the subject. Numerous studies have already examined the effects of sleep deprivation in human volunteers, and they were all completed without a monkey body count.

Frying Pan to Fire

The National Institute on Aging funded the experiment two years ago, when it was originally slated to be conducted in the University of Massachusetts–Amherst laboratory of notorious experimenter Agnès Lacreuse. It’s been on hold, but now experimenters are about to begin this cruelty, and we need your help to spare marmosets!

Ricki Colman is the UW-Madison experimenter in charge of this atrocity. Conveniently for her, she’s also the head of the university’s animal oversight committee, which voted to approve the project she wants to conduct—a vote that likely violates a slew of federal regulations.

What You Can Do

Please take action today by urging UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin to stop this pointless experiment immediately. You can do so by e-mailing her a polite comment:

Jennifer Mnookin
Chancellor
University of Wisconsin–Madison
[email protected]

Please feel free to use our sample letter, but remember that using your own words is always more effective.