Note: This item has been updated
An undercover investigation of the New Iberia Research Center in Lafayette, Louisiana, has led the Humane Society of the United States to allege that the primate research facility has violated hundreds of animal welfare regulations. The Humane Society also has evidence, provided to ScienceInsider, that the U.S. National Institutes of Health violated its own moratorium on breeding chimpanzees for biomedical research, awarding New Iberia a contract to provide infant chimps to government investigators.
(Update: In response to ScienceInsider's query about its contract with the Center, NIH issued a statement on 5 March that says the institution did not violate its breeding moratorium. The contract was with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the moratorium only applies to chimpanzees that are owned or supported by NIH's National Center for Research Resources. What's more, the statement says: "The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) does not support a chimp breeding colony at NIRC and does not conduct chimp research at NIRC. NIAID leases chimpanzees for use in infectious disease research at other accredited facilities." )
New Iberia, part of the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, houses more than 6000 monkeys and about 325 chimpanzees, making it one of the country’s largest primate facilities. Between December 2007 and September 2008, a New Iberia employee working with the society secretly videotaped the care and handling of chimpanzees and monkeys at New Iberia. The worker's findings led the group to file a complaint to the U.S. Department of Agriculture that alleges 328 possible violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Humane Society officials would not release the complaint but says it questions the quality of veterinary care and housing conditions, as well as the psychological well-being of the chimpanzees and monkeys. “A major issue for us is the psychological deprivation and torment that these animals are enduring,” said Wayne Pacelle, the Humane Society's president. ABC News has a major story with further details.
(Update, 9:26pm Statement from New Iberia: " Nothing in the videos alter the fact that the New Iberia Research Center is in compliance with all federal standards and guidelines regarding the care and use of animals, as determined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control.")
Recent USDA inspections of the facility in regards to the handling and care of the primates found only minor violations.
The Humane Society gave ScienceInsider a copy of a $6.2 million grant from NIH to New Iberia that explicitly pays the facility to supply researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases with four to 12 infant chimpanzees between September 2002 and 2009.
Pacelle says his group is working with Congress to introduce legislation that would ban all biomedical research with chimpanzees. Several European countries and Japan already have similar bans in place.
—Jon Cohen
Nice insights! If proven to be true what will be the University admin's step to repair the issues?
I've reviewed the materials more carefully. I think that the biggest issue is enrichment of the environment. Psychological care for the animals is not good from what it looks like to me. I agree with that point.
For instance, a chimp taught sign language should be given a place where he/she can use it and be understood. Space and appropriate co-housing should be done where possible. This last is harder than it looks though, because captive-raised chimps don't necessarily adjust well to life with other chimps.
Aside from that, the care looks ok to me from a veterinary point of view.
The crashing to the floor thing after being darted? That's not a big deal, despite being dramatic. Nor is whacking a young chimp on the head for biting. A chimp's skull is pretty thick people, and young ones can deliver a nasty bite. Whacking a chimp on the head is not like whacking the sensitive head of a human child. I do that with dogs and cats that snap or claw at me too. I'm not trying to do harm them, I just need to assert dominance. It is very important to teach chimps when they are young not to bite. It is virtually impossible once they grow up.
I don't like primate research much myself, and I know that keepers get very attached to some animals. People cry when a favorite is terminated for a study for necropsy. Sometimes keepers quit. I can totally understand that.
Yes, some P.I.s keep themselves in business by killing monkeys and their studies aren't important. I know they exist. But most of them don't that. Yes, it's a career like any other, and inevitably, people that work with primates distance themselves. The same thing happens with people working with cats or dogs or birds or rodents. Rodents are easier, because we know them as vermin. (But in some places, monkeys are considered vermin.)
The fact is there are diseases and conditions that can't be studied in rodents or other animals. So primate models are pretty much it for those diseases and conditions. Even with primate testing, sometimes people die from therapies that worked in primates. Without them, more would. We can decide that human lives aren't worth that, but try telling that to a mother of a child who died from some drug treatment. Try telling that to someone dying of AIDS.
I live with 4 cats. In the past year, I have made 3 trips to the vet to treat serious injuries. (Yes, they are neutered.) One of my cats had his knee broken somehow several years ago. It cost me over $1,000 to fix him. Someone could come into my house with a camera, and by showing just those moments when the injury was dripping blood or pus, make me out to be violating laws. But that's ridiculous. I love my cats and take the best care of them I am capable of.
A facility with 6,000 large primate animals that fight with each other is going to have injuries. Monkeys and apes do awful things to each other like bite another monkey's hand right off. They have a pecking order. So, like in the Sopranos (or like my 4 cats), they fight and get injured. If 1 animal is seriously injured per day, out of 6,000, that is 6% injury rate per year. That's not bad at all. My four cats have a serious injury rate of 75% per year.
But it would be easy to portray that normal course of events as if it were a horrible problem, and the facility was run by evil people. I suspect that the serious injury rate in Louisiana is lower than 1 per day.
Most days in a major facility it is necessary to round up injured monkeys. It isn't always easy to do it either, they aren't all that interested in being rounded up to be treated. And sometimes the keepers don't notice it right away. A badly injured monkey doesn't necessarily advertise it is hurt.
Then there are the not so serious injuries that monkeys and apes get. Those are best left alone for the animals to heal by themselves. That's exactly what I do with my cats. Big-Boy comes home with a bloody ear, I leave it to him and keep an eye on it. Generally, everything's fine.
When treated, monkeys and chimps don't take kindly to dressings. They can bite out stitches, staples, etcetera. So facilities have inside cages to keep them sometimes. Sometimes a badly hurt monkey has to be put down. That's going to happen in a big facility.
This business of darting a chimpanzee that is 10 to 15 feet off the ground isn't a problem. Chimpanzees aren't human, they are phenomenally tough creatures. Their skin is thick, their bones are stronger than ours, and their brain isn't as easily damaged. A chimpanzee can fall 40 feet out of a tree on his back, bounce, and then jump right up. A 135 pound female chimpanzee was recorded with a one arm pull of approximately 1200 pounds. Just think about that for a second. How many humans, if their arm was subjected to a 1200 pound pull, wouldn't break or tear something?
I would be extremely surprised if these tapes are not taken out of context, a smear job by ideologues. What matters in a facility is whether monkeys and apes are treated for serious injuries in a reasonable amount of time. Remember that most other primates have pretty darn high pain thresholds. A chimp, for instance, will run around if it has a broken rib.
This Travis pet chimp incident is a good example of how tough and strong chimps are, and what they can do to each other. Travis knew the woman he attacked. He was just doing what a normal adult chimp would do to another chimpanzee, it's just that the woman wasn't as strong and tough as a chimpanzee is. Travis the chimp was stabbed several times by his owner, and all that did was kind of slow him down a bit. It got his attention to the point that he stopped attacking the woman. Then Travis was shot several times and that made him go into his cage to die. These are incredibly robust, extremely powerful animals. They are not human, and should not be treated as if they were.
There are legitimate issues in primate colony research facilities, but this doesn't look like it to me.