40 Years of Monkey Misery: Margaret Livingstone’s Cruel Career Timeline

Published by Amanda Hays.
3 min read

Margaret Livingstone was a novice experimenter when she first injected chemicals into the brains of monkeys in 1982. The test proved pointless and led to no treatments for humans, but she was hooked. She’s been a serial animal experimenter profiting from monkey misery ever since.

Livingstone’s current nine-to-five as a Harvard University experimenter has included tearing baby monkeys away from their mothers, sewing their eyes shut, and damaging their brains. Spanning more than 40 years, her résumé is littered with similar gruesome tests, leaving behind a trail of dead animals and wasted taxpayer dollars—without any cures or treatments for humans.

Here are some low points from Livingstone’s cornucopia of misery:                                                                                                    

2022Present

In 2022, PETA exposed Livingstone’s maternal-deprivation experiments, in which she removed newborn monkeys from their mothers and distorted their vision to see how badly she could damage their brain and visual development. In 2023, we discovered yet another depraved experiment, in which she snatched newborn monkeys away from their mothers and forced them to wear goggles that befuddled their vision by creating an unrelenting and disorienting strobing effect.

2019

Livingstone tore young monkeys away from their mothers and sewed their eyelids shut. She then left them like this, unable to open their eyes, for an entire year while forcing them through brain scans and a battery of tests. After this torment, she came to the Earth-shattering conclusion that the blinded monkeys “relied on touch for interacting with their environment.”

2005

Livingstone sewed shut one eyelid of days-old infant monkeys, leaving them visually impaired for three months. She then killed them and dissected their brains, concluding that this trauma had impacted their brain development. Shocker.

January 2003May 2003

2003 was a busy year for Marge. In two separate experiments, she cut open monkeys’ heads, jammed electrodes into their brains, bolted metal posts to their skulls to hold their heads in place, and stitched metal coils onto their eyes. After this, she withheld fluids from the monkeys and forced the thirsty animals to participate in tests to receive juice as a “reward.”

In one test, the monkeys were locked in a dark box, unable to move their heads, and forced to wear goggles that impaired their vision.

2002

Livingstone sawed open monkeys’ skulls, inserted electrodes into their brains, and stitched wire coils onto their eyes. The animals were then deprived of fluid and forced to stare at a screen for extended periods of time, receiving juice as a “reward” for their cooperation.

1988

Livingstone drilled holes into monkeys’ skulls and brains and injected chemicals into them. She also injected a radioactive compound into one monkey’s eye.

1987: Part One and Part Two

November 1987 was full of Marge’s monkey torment. In one paper, she describes drilling holes in monkeys’ skulls, slicing open their brains, and jamming electrodes inside their heads. She then stuck contact lenses in their eyes, injected them with a paralyzing drug, forced them to stare at a screen, then killed them and dissected their brains.

As described in a second paper, she drilled holes into monkeys’ skulls, injected chemicals into their heads, then killed them and dissected their brains.

January 1984March 1984

1984 was another busy year of pointless abuse by Livingstone. In January, she jammed electrodes inside the brains of young monkeys, dosed them with a chemical to induce paralysis, stuck contact lenses in their eyes, and forced them to stare at a screen.

In March, she drilled “many holes” into monkeys’ skulls. Experimenters also made “15 to 25 injections” of chemicals into the holes, then killed the monkeys and dissected their brains.

1983

Livingstone injected “wheat-germ agglutinin” combined with “horseradish peroxide” into monkeys’ brains to see where it went.

1982

Livingstone injected chemicals into the brains of long-tailed macaques and squirrel monkeys, kept the animals alive for up to two weeks, then killed them and sliced open their brains.

What You Can Do

Countless sensitive monkeys have endured more than four decades of misery so that Livingstone could pad her résumé with pointless publications and obscene experiments. It’s time for her to retire from this relentless cruelty.

Please TAKE ACTION by urging her employer, Harvard University, to pull the plug on Livingstone’s monkey laboratory:

Tell Harvard to Shut Down Livingstone’s Lab
Sinister ‘Monkey Experimenter’ Haunts Harvard Alumni Event in Washington, D.C.
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