Monkey research moving abroad to escape stricter standards & activism

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

 

 

Monkey research moving abroad to escape stricter standards & activism

 

STILLWATER--Oklahoma State University

president Burns Hargis personally vetoed anthrax

experiments on baboons planned by the university

veterinary school and funded by the National

Institutes of Health, revealed Susan Simpson of

The Oklahoman on November 30, 2009

" This research was not in the best

interest of the university. Testing lethal

pathogens on primates would be a new area for

OSU, outside our current research programs, "

OSU spokesperson Gary Shutt told Simpson.

The rare cancellation of a funded animal

research project was disclosed about six weeks

after InVivo Therapeutics Corporation, of

Cambridge, Massachusetts, sued Oregon Health &

Science University over the condition of monkeys

supplied by the Oregon National Primate Research

Center, an Oregon Health & Science University

facility, located in Beaverton, a Portland

suburb.

The InVivo Therapeutics experiment called

for severing the spinal cords of 16 rhesus

macaques, " leaving portions of their lower body

paralyzed, " reported Boston Globe correspondent

Sean Teehan. " Researchers would then insert a

polymer device developed by InVivo into the

monkeys to see whether it helped them recover

lower body motor skills. InVivo said the Oregon

school failed to provide the number of monkeys

required, reducing the pool of animals available

for the surgery. The procedure was performed on

seven monkeys, all of whom developed bladder

complications soon after. "

Four of the seven monkeys were euthanized

due to the severity of their bladder problems.

" Another five monkeys suffered setbacks ranging

from a broken ankle to a staph infection, " wrote

Teehan. " InVivo said the bladder problems

developed because Oregon staffers failed to

provide the proper after-surgery care and

necessary medical devices to keep their bodily

systems functioning, even after being directed

to do so by InVivo researchers. "

Oregon Health & Science University

responded in a written statement that it

" completely disagrees with InVivo Therapeutic

Corp.'s assertions in this lawsuit and we plan to

vigorously defend ourselves. "

" The stench of monkey excrement is thick

at the Oregon National Primate Research Center,

scenting the air long before you hear the

screeching of the center's 4,200 nonhuman

primates, " reported Willamette Week staff writer

James Pitkin in August 2009, after Oregon Health

& Science University applied for $14.8 million in

stimulus funds to expand the center.

" Funding would come from $10.4 billion

in stimulus money allocated to the NIH, " Pitkin

wrote. " The new facilities would be barely

distinguishable from a human hospital. Last year

the primate center gave its monkeys 264

ultrasounds, 7,917 physical examinations and 154

dental procedures, the grant application says.

In other words, OHSU lab monkeys may have better

access to health care than 46 million uninsured

Americans. "

But that might not be saying much. For

example, the USDA Animal & Plant Health

Inspection Service in December 2008 issued a

warning letter to the Oregon National Primate

Research Center for multiple alleged violations

of the Animal Welfare Act.

" The warning cited three errors in

veterinary care, including a serious 2007

incident where a pregnant monkey died when a

researcher failed to notice she was having a

troubled labor. The two other incidents involved

a sponge being left in a monkey after surgery and

a surgery performed on the wrong monkey, "

summarized Andy Dworkin of the Portland Oregonian.

Stop Animal Exploitation Now co-founder

Michael Budkie on October 21, 2009 issued

similar allegations in a 61-page complaint to

USDA-APHIS about conditions at the University of

Louisiana at Lafayette's New Iberia Research

Center. The SAEN complaint is based on a year's

worth of health records for 592 monkeys kept in

one colony at New Iberia. SAEN obtained the

records through the federal Freedom of

Information Act.

" The colony of primates experienced 58

deaths in that year, or 10% of the colony, "

summarized Heather Miller of The Daily Iberian.

" Budkie said when projected to the research

center as a whole, " which houses nearly 6,000

monkeys plus 325 chimpanzees, " the number

suggests 650 primate deaths per year. Of 149

pregnancies, 48 resulted in infant mortality,

Budkie added. "

Both SAEN and the Humane Society of the

U.S. filed complaints about monkey care at New

Iberia in 2008, Miller recalled. The HSUS

complaint followed " a nine-month undercover

investigation of the facility and extensive media

coverage, " beginning with an exposé aired by the

ABC news magazine program Nightline. A series of

USDA-APHIS inspections followed, including a

reinspection personally ordered by Agriculture

Secretary Tom Vilsack. " The investigation is

complete, but the findings remain under legal

review, " Miller said she was told by USDA-APHIS

spokesperson David Sacks.

Monkey use rises

The intensified scrutiny of nonhuman

primate research facilities comes as monkey

studies continue trending upward. Chimp studies

fell into disfavor in the 1990s, after chimps

proved almost useless as subjects of HIV

research, but monkeys in the early 21st century

have become the subjects of choice for studies of

biological agents which might be used as weapons.

As laboratory monkey suppliers have increased the

numbers of monkeys available to researchers, use

has expanded in other directions.

Total U.S. lab use of nonhuman primates

reached an all-time high of 69,990 in 2007, the

most recent year for which USDA-APHIS has

published data, up from 49,382 in 2001.

Increased monkey use is evident in Britain, as

well, rising 16% in 2008 alone.

The National Aeronautics and Space

Administration recently disclosed that it has

resumed monkey studies, decades after abandoning

them in the early years of human space flight and

more than 10 years after divesting of the former

NASA chimpanzee colony by transferring them to

the now defunct Coulston Foundation. Coulston

eventually retired 34 ex-NASA chimps to Primarily

Primates. The remainder were acquired by the

Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care (also known as

Save The Chimps) in 2001 and 2002.

" For the new study, 18 to 28 squirrel

monkeys will be exposed to a low dose of the type

of radiation that astronauts traveling to Mars

can expect to encounter, " reported Irene Klotz

of Discovery News. " The animals will not be

killed, " but will remain under longterm

observation.

A more forceful jolt to activist

ambitions of abolishing nonhuman primate

experiments may be under construction soon at the

University of Wisconsin in Madison. The

university has applied for $15 million in federal

economic stimulus funds to finance new monkey

research facilities that would combine all monkey

research on campus into one building.

The site, between two existing monkey

research centers, formerly belonged to bicycle

shop owner Roger Charly. Charly initially agreed

to sell it to retired California physician

Richard McLellan for $675,000, to house a

National Primate Research Center Exhibition Hall,

to be developed by Primate Freedom founder Rick

Bogle. But Charly changed his mind before the

sale was completed, and after a four-year court

fight, sold the property to the university for

$1 million.

" A staggering 27,905 monkeys were

imported to the United States in 2008, " says

International Primate Protection League founder

Shirley McGreal, " with most of the doomed

animals coming from China, " according to U.S.

Fish & Wildlife Service import records. China

sold 18,074 monkeys to U.S. laboratories in 2008,

four times as many as runner-up Mauritius

(4,502). Cambodia exported 1,920 monkeys to the

U.S., Vietnam sent 1,800, and Indonesia sent

535.

Ninety-five percent of the monkeys bought

from abroad by U.S. labs in 2008-- 26,499 in

all--were crab-eating macaques. " Ironically, the

species most traded from China, the crab-eating

macaque, is not native to China, " McGreal

notes, " but China appears to be vacuuming up the

monkeys from neighbor countries. " For example,

Laotian exports of crab-eating macques to China

soared from 100 in 2006 to 7,700 in 2007, but

fell back to 800 in 2008, according to United

Nations Environment Program data.

Also imported into the U.S. in 2008 for

lab use were 838 rhesus macaques and 390 African

green vervets.

U.S. labs are only allowed to buy

captive-bred monkeys, but the lab suppliers'

breeding stock are wild-caught, and wild-caught

monkeys have sometimes been detected among

monkeys sold as " captive bred. "

The increasing traffic has encouraged

Bioculture Ltd., of Mauritius, already breeding

monkeys at 19 sites around the world, to breed

crab-eating macaques in Puerto Rico, closer to

the U.S. market. " Bioculture Ltd. hopes to begin

operating next summer in Guayama, " reported Jill

Laster of Associated Press in November 2009,

" much to the dismay of islanders already dealing

with a plague of patas monkeys--descendants of

lab escapees who run though backyards, stop

traffic, and destroy crops. "

Attempts to capture and sell the patas

monkeys have failed for decades. Puerto Rican

secretary of natural resources Javier Velez

Arrocho in December 2008 authorized wildlife

rangers to trap and shoot as many as 1,000

monkeys in 11 troupes who inhabit the Lagas

Valley, after 92 research organizations showed

no interest in them.

Novartis to China

China, meanwhile, is rapidly moving

from supplying monkeys to U.S. and European labs

to becoming a direct participant in breaking-edge

biomedical research.

Already operating in China since 2006,

the Swiss-based Novartis pharmaceutical empire on

November 3, 2009 anounced that it would spend $1

billion to expand the Novartis Institute for

BioMedical Research in Shanghai, and $250

million more to build an " advanced technical

research and development and manufacturing

facility in Changshu. " The Novartis research

staff in China will grow from 160 to " about

1,000, " Novartis said.

Novartis did not disclose how many

animals will be used in China, nor will Novartis

be required to disclose animal testing data under

current Chinese law.

Swiss reports said that all Novartis

animal testing will move to China, after

antivivisectionists in July 2009 allegedly stole

an urn containing the ashes of chief executive

officer Daniel Vasella's mother, who died in

2001; spray-painted slogans on her headstone;

torched Vasella's hunting lodge in Bach,

Austria; and sprayed slogans attacking Novartis

and Vasella on the village church in Risch,

Switzerland, where Vasella lives. Vandals

earlier damaged the homes and cars of Novartis

staff, and a suspected arson in May 2009 damaged

a restaurant at sports facilities Novartis owns

in St. Louis, France.

One of the slogans sprayed on the

headstone was " Drop HLS Now, " in apparent

reference to the testing firm Huntingdon Life

Sciences, but Novartis spokesperson Satoshi

Sugimoto told Associated Press writer Thomas

Brunner that Novartis had not done business with

Huntingdon in years.

In Malaysia, meanwhile, the Johor State

Investment Centre in May 2009 applied for

permission to import macaques from Indonesia,

China, or Vietnam for use in a new animal

testing laboratory. Saharuddin Anan, director

of the Malaysian wildlife department's

legislation and enforcement division, told Agence

France-Presse that the proposal was under study,

with input from animal and environmental groups.

Friends of the Earth/ Malaysia president Mohamad

Idris told Agence France-Press that the project

appeared to be backed by an unnamed French

pharmaceutical research company.

Indonesia, like Malaysia and India,

officially prohibits exports of wild-caught

monkeys for research, but the British Union for

the Abolition of Vivisection charged in April

2009 that the Indonesia ban is " a sham. "

Charged BUAV spokesperson Sarah Kite in

the Bali Times, " The Indonesian Ministry of

Forestry has increased trapping quotas for

wild-caught long-tailed macaques from 5,100 in

2008 to 15,100 for 2009. " Even if the

wild-caught macaques are used only as breeders,

the numbers indicate an imminent expansion of

macaque exports.

Indonesia " exported a total of 24,811

macaques worldwide between 1997 and 2006, " wrote

Anissa S. Febrina of the Jakarta Post.

A May 18, 2009 arson that did $300,000

worth of damage to the Reno offices of Scientific

Resources International may further encourage the

trend toward exporting animal research to

authoritarian states in the developing world.

SRI imports monkeys from China. A North American

Animal Liberation Front Press Office web posting

claimed the arson was an ALF action.

 

Suspect is bowhunter

 

The most recent suspect charged with

allegedly attacking animal research facilities,

meanwhile, didn't sound much like an animal

rights activist in an interview with Associated

Press writer Patrick Condon.

Scott DeMuth, 22, was in November 2009

charged with one count of conspiring to commit

animal enterprise terrorism, for allegedly

participating in an unspecified manner in a

November 2004 raid on Spence Laboratories at the

University of Iowa.

The raiders " released more than 300

animals, dumped chemicals on data, damaged

about 40 computers, and publicized the home

addresses of several researchers, " wrote Condon.

" One other person, Carrie Feldman, has been

detained in connection with an investigation into

the raid. She has not been charged. DeMuth says

Feldman used to be his girlfriend. DeMuth, " a

meat-eating bow hunter, " denies he was involved

in the raid at all, " Condon reported. " He says

he has never been an animal rights activist and

believes he has been targeted because he got to

know some underground animal rights activists and

holds unpopular political views. "

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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