For immediate release:
March 2, 2021
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Baltimore PETA recently received reports from the Maryland Department of Agriculture stating that Johns Hopkins University (JHU) acquired 31 rhesus monkeys from the infamous Wisconsin Taxpayer-funded National Primate Research Center (WNPRC), where nearly 2,000 monkeys are kept in small barren steel cage houses in rooms with no windows. PETA’s six-month covert investigation of the center found workers ripping baby monkeys away from their mothers, electrocuting their penises, and more.
Both institutions are notorious for horrific animal care failures. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have launched an investigation into WNPRC after PETA exposure showed that the stress of extreme, near-constant, prolonged confinement causes monkeys to attack each other while others mutilate themselves. or walked and circled endlessly. The Primate Center has a long history of animal welfare violations, including a $ 74,000 fine last year for mishandling, incompetence and negligence in its laboratories.
At JHU, USDA researchers found highly social primates trapped alone in sterile laboratory cages, as well as many other federal violations, including a worker closing the cage door to a monkey, killing the animal.
“These 31 monkeys were sent from one hellish hole to another, apparently to store, torture and kill them in experiments with taxpayer money,” says PETA vice president Shalin Gala. “Primates are living things, not test tubes, and PETA is calling for an end to the conveyor belt from monkey mills to the laboratory.”
In fiscal 2020, the NIH provided over $ 807 million to JHU and over $ 338 million to WNPRC’s parent institution, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. More than 145,000 PETA supporters have called on the NIH to stop spending taxpayer money to fund monkey tests, and the group is urging JHU to end all animal experimentation, including the notoriously flawed and possibly illegal deadly brain tests on barn owls by Shrisha Mysore.
PETA, whose motto is in part that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – opposes specisism, which is a worldview focused on human excellence. For more information please visit PETA.org or subscribe to the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram…