PETA Statement: Monkey Experimenters’ Plea to Harm Monkeys with Vaccines Already in Human Trials

For Immediate Release:
October 8, 2020

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA primatologist and Senior Science Adviser Lisa Jones-Engel, Ph.D., regarding comments made by Dr. Anthony Fauci to Science magazine:

History can’t be denied: Tests on monkeys have failed to deliver successful vaccines for other coronaviruses, HIV, tuberculosis, Zika, malaria, and other diseases, so we agree with Dr. Anthony Fauci that attempting to translate research results from tests on animals to humans has been the bane of scientists’ existence. There is simply no scientific need to harm monkeys. The U.S. needs to be innovative and stop clinging to outdated science. The monkey experimenters’ transparent attempt to justify their own existence, as science speeds past them, will only hamper and delay a COVID-19 vaccine.

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.