PETA Wants UW to Bar Disgraced Monkey Experimenter From Access to Any Animal
For Immediate Release:
July 29, 2025
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Following the unprecedented and unanimous decision by the University of Washington’s (UW) animal oversight committee to suspend all four of Michele Basso’s experiments on monkeys and other animals, PETA in a letter sent today requests UW officials block Basso’s access to all rooms with animals in them, terminate the suspended experiments, and retire the surviving animals.
The animal oversight committee cited a loss of trust in Basso, the former leader of the federally funded Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC), as well as her blatant disregard of the rules and lack of responsibility when it suspended her experiments earlier this month, with comments including:
“I am not comfortable with [Basso] doing any more experiments here.”
“I was not or am not comfortable with [Basso] really being allowed to do research right now.”
“I have no reason to think that [Basso] is even capable of making the changes that we would need to see before we felt comfortable with allowing them” to experiment on animals.
“The phrase that keeps coming up into my head is ‘tainted well,’ and I am worried that the data we’ve taken from these animals up until this point…may not be usable.”
Basso has a documented history of transferring monkeys to new institutions, and PETA’s letter warns that many of the monkeys she used are still at risk. Basso shipped monkeys to UW from the University of California, Los Angeles, which she first brought from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
“The monkeys who endured Basso’s cruel experiments are in danger of being tormented and killed at a new laboratory,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA urges UW officials to take further, strong action against Basso to ensure no more harm comes to these monkeys, including by sending those who are still in a condition to go to reputable sanctuaries.”
Basso was hired to direct the WaNPRC in 2021. She was removed from that position in 2024 following a letter from PETA to UW’s Board of Regents outlining serious problems, including botched surgical implants in monkeys’ skulls, multiple violations of federal animal welfare laws, and a decades-long record of conflicts with the veterinary staff at two universities where she worked.
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.
