Massive Victory! Harvard Loses Infant Monkey Torture Funds After 31-Month PETA Campaign
For Immediate Release:
May 27, 2025
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Following two and a half years of sustained pressure from PETA, including advertisements, complaints to federal authorities, critiques from primatologists, scientists, and legal scholars, and 700,000 emails from PETA supporters, funding for Margaret Livingstone’s baby monkey experiments has been terminated, ending decades of monkey torment. Today, PETA called on Harvard to send the monkeys to a reputable sanctuary.
PETA first exposed Harvard’s monkey experiments in the fall of 2022, publicizing that Livingstone tore baby monkeys away from their mothers and deprived them of normal visual input to observe the harmful effects on their developing brains. Livingstone forced infant monkeys to wear goggles that simulated disorienting strobe lights for the first 18 months of their lives. She’d sewn other monkeys’ eyes shut, and after years of torment, she killed and dissected many of the animals.
“PETA celebrates this massive victory and toasts the end of Margaret Livingstone’s career as tormenter of baby monkeys,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA applauds the Trump administration’s decision to strip funding from one of the cruelest experiments ever devised and perpetrated on infant monkeys.”
Livingstone spent 40 years terrifying monkeys and other animals in agonizing experiments. She collected more than $33 million despite never producing a single treatment or cure for humans. More than 380 experts—including primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, conservationist Dr. Ian Redmond, and Harvard anthropologist Dr. Richard Wrangham—joined PETA and Harvard’s own Animal Law & Policy Clinic in urging the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to defund Livingstone’s experiments.
The cancellation of funding for Livingstone’s infant monkey laboratory marks a historic win for animals amid a sea change at NIH since President Trump took office. It follows NIH’s groundbreaking announcement in April that it is shifting focus away from experiments on animals and prioritizing human-relevant research methods. NIH’s plan incorporates steps from PETA’s Research Modernization NOW—a detailed roadmap for replacing experiments on animals with superior, human-relevant alternatives.
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 Kitsfor people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
