Edie Falco Rallies UW Staffers to Help Shut Down Shameful Primate Center

For Immediate Release:
May 10, 2021

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Earlier today, Nurse Jackie and The Sopranos star Edie Falco called nearly 18,000 University of Washington (UW) faculty members and staffers to deliver an urgent message on PETA’s behalf: Four hundred monkeys are suffering and in grave danger right now at the Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC), a secretive laboratory operating right under their noses on the UW campus.

“Video that was taken from inside by experimenters … shows these monkeys, who never see sunshine, and they are circling, they’re pacing in frustration and distress,” Falco’s voice-mail begins. “As a member of the UW community, you really should know what’s going on. This primate center’s been investigated. It’s been cited by federal officials for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.”

She goes on to explain that monkeys have died there from starvation, dehydration, strangulation, and veterinary error—and the ones who survive are subjected to toe-curling experiments. “[E]xperimenters have cut into the skulls of these monkeys. They implant a metal device right onto the bone,” she says.

Monkeys have died at the WaNPRC from bleeding to death, being mauled by other stressed monkeys, and choking on their own vomit—and after 60 years, the center has failed to produce a single marketable vaccine or cure for deadly human diseases. PETA and Falco are calling on UW President Ana Mari Cauce to follow Harvard University’s example by shutting down the primate center.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.