Former UW Primate Center Head Banned from Using Animals: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
October 17, 2025

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner

Please see the following statement from PETA Associate Director of Primate Experimentation Campaigns Amy Meyer regarding the decision of the University of Washington’s animal care committee banning Michele Basso, former head of the Washington National Primate Research Center, from working with any animal for one year:

PETA years ago detailed exactly why Michele Basso should never be within eyesight of a non-human animal, and on Thursday, the University of Washington’s animal care committee voted to ban her from using animals for one year. The committee members who failed to support the lifetime ban she so richly deserves should be ashamed and lose their seats on the committee. Basso is not the only bad apple, and action against her does not solve the systemic decay at the heart of the university’s primate center, where, on June 30, staff assumed an infant monkey was dead, and put them in a cooler, alive and suffering, awaiting necropsy. The rot at the Washington National Primate Research Center goes all the way to the root, and it must be shut down.

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.