Non-human primate experiments



Non-human primates (NHPs) are used in toxicology tests, studies of neurology, behavior and cognition, reproduction, genetics, and xenotransplantation. They are caught in the wild, taken from zoos, circuses and animal trainers, or purpose-bred. Around 65,000 NHPs are used each year in the United States and European Union.

Their use is controversial. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has written that NHPs are used because their brains share structural and functional features with the human brain, but "[w]hile this similiarity has scientific advantages, it poses some difficult ethical problems, because of an increased likelihood that primates experience pain and suffering in ways that are similar to humans."

In December 2006, an inquiry chaired by Sir David Weatherall, emeritus professor of medicine at Oxford University, concluded that there is a "strong scientific and moral case" for using primates in some research. The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection called the Weatherall report a "whitewash," arguing that it "fail[ed] to properly address the welfare needs and moral case for subjecting these sensitive, intelligent creatures to a lifetime of suffering in UK labs."

Species and numbers used
Most of the NHPs used are baboons, macaques, marmosets, and chimpanzees. In the United States, nearly 60,000 were used in 2004, and 10,000 in the European Union. Just over 3,000 were used in the UK in 2005. and 3,115 in 2005 Primates are the species most likely to be re-used in experiments. Re-use is allowed if the animals have been used in mild procedures with no lasting side-effects, according to the Research Defence Society, a lobby group. Gill Langley of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection reports that it is because of re-use that there was a fall in 2005 in the number of individual primates used in the UK.

There are 1,300 chimpanzees in research laboratories in the United States, many used in hepatitis and HIV research, often housed alone because of the nature of the research.

Bans
Austria, New Zealand, Netherlands, and Sweden have introduced bans on experiments involving the great apes, a biological family that includes gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and humans. Their use is not outlawed in the UK, but no licenses have been issued since 1998. The Boyd Group, a British group comprising animal researchers, philosophers, primatologists, and animal advocates, has recommended a global prohibition on the use of great apes.

Sweden's legislation also bans invasive experiments on gibbons. In December 2005, Austria outlawed experiments on any apes, unless it is conducted in the interests in the individual animal. In 2002, Belgium announced that it was working toward a ban on all primate use, and in the UK, 103 MPs signed an Early Day Motion calling for an end to primate experiments on the grounds that they cause suffering and are unreliable, according to the MPs.

Allegations
Many of the best-known allegations of abuse made by animal protection or animal rights groups against animal-testing facilities involve NHPs.


 * University of Wisconsin-Madison

The so-called "pit of despair" was used in experiments conducted on rhesus macaque monkeys during the 1970s by American comparative psychologist Harry Harlow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The aim of the research was to produce clinical depression. The vertical chamber was a stainless-steel bin with slippery sides that sloped to a rounded bottom. A 3/8 in. wire mesh floor 1 in. above the bottom of the chamber allowed waste material to drop out of holes. The chamber had a food box and a water-bottle holder, and was covered with a pyramid top so that the monkeys were unable to escape. Harlow placed baby monkeys in the chamber alone for up to six weeks. Within a few days, they stopped moving about and remained huddled in a corner. The monkeys were found to be psychotic when removed from the chamber, and most did not recover.


 * University of California, Riverside

Britches was a macaque monkey born in 1985 into a breeding colony at the University of California, Riverside, removed from his mother at birth, and left alone and tethered, with his eyelids sewn shut, as part of a sight-deprivation experiment. He was removed from the laboratory when he was five weeks old during a raid by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). The university criticized the ALF, claiming that damage to the monkey's eyelids, allegedly caused by the sutures, had in fact been caused by an ALF veterinarian who examined the monkey after the raid and wrote a report. The university also said that the monitoring device attached to the monkey's head had been tampered with by the ALF before the photograph was taken. The experiment was condemned by the American Council for the Blind.

In 2003, CNN reported that a post-doctoral veterinarian at Columbia University complained to the university's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee about experiments being conducted on baboons by E. Sander Connolly, an assistant professor of neurosurgery. Connolly was mimicking strokes by removing the baboons' left eyeballs and using the empty sockets to reach and clamp a particular blood vessel in their brains. The baboons were kept alive after the surgery for three to ten days in a state of "profound disability" which would have been "terrifying," according to neurologist Robert Hoffman. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals published the description of one experiment:
 * Columbia University

"On September 19, 2001, baboon B777's left eye was removed, and a stroke was induced. The next morning, it was noted that the animal could not sit up, that he was leaning over, and that he could not eat. That evening, the baboon was still slouched over and was offered food but couldn't chew. On September 21, 2001, the record shows that the baboon was 'awake, but no movement, can't eat (chew), vomited in the a.m.' With no further notation about consulting with a veterinarian, the record reads, 'At 1:30 p.m. the animal died in the cage.''"

An investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found "no indication that the experiments...violated federal guidelines." The Dean of Research at Columbia's School of Medicine said that Connolly had stopped the experiments because of threats from animal rights activists, but still believed his work was humane and potentially valuable.


 * Covance, Germany

In Germany in 2004, journalist Friedrich Mülln took undercover footage of staff in Covance in Münster, Europe's largest primate-testing center. Staff were filmed handling monkeys roughly, screaming at them, and making them dance to blaring music. The monkeys were shown isolated in small wire cages with little or natural light, no environmental enrichment, and subjected to high noise levels from staff shouting and playing the radio. Primatologist Jane Goodall described their living conditions as "horrendous."


 * University of Cambridge

In the UK, after an undercover investigation in 1998, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) reported that researchers in Cambridge University's primate-testing labs were sawing the tops off marmosets' heads, inducing strokes, then leaving them overnight without veterinarian care, because staff worked only nine to five.  The experiments involved the use of hundreds of macaque monkeys, who were first trained to perform certain behavioral and cognitive tasks, then re-tested after brain damage to determine how the damage had affected their skills. The monkeys were deprived of food and water to encourage them to perform the tasks, with water being withheld for 22 out of every 24 hours. (video)

The Research Defence Society, a lobby group, defended Cambridge's research. The RDS wrote that the monkeys were fully anaesthetised, and appropriate pain killers were given after the surgery. "On recovery from the anaesthesia, the monkeys were kept in an incubator, offered food and water and monitored at regular intervals until the early evening. They were then allowed to sleep in the incubators until the next morning. No monkeys died unattended during the night after stroke surgery." A court rejected BUAV's application for a judicial review. BUAV has appealed and a decision is expected in 2006.