It’s possible that a contentious research facility in Oregon, where monkeys have been treated as lab rats for years, will transform into a primate sanctuary.
Last week, negotiations to determine the future of the Oregon National Primate Research Center were started by the Oregon Health and Science University.However, it has received a great deal of criticism from animal rights organisations, which have been demanding its closure for years due to allegations of torture and animal abuse.
According to Oregon Live, the Hillsboro facility is the biggest of the seven federally funded primate research facilities, housing about 5,000 primates and 267 staff.
Lawmakers have urged for the center to change course and cease its research after Legacy Health merger talks were shelved.
According to the outlet, President Dr. Shereef Elnahal told workers at a recent OHSU Faculty Senate meeting that a sanctuary would only proceed if it was fully funded, following a vote in February by the OHSU board that supported Elnahal’s proposal to turn the center into a monkey sanctuary.
According to Oregon Live, Elnahal stated that “there will be no deal” unless Congress provides the government cash to cover the anticipated $220 million to $290 million cost.
In February, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) declared that the center’s decision to stop conducting monkey research was a “colossal win for monkeys and science.”
However, PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo told the Daily Mail that the center, not the government, ought to be providing funds for the sanctuary.
For the past 60 years, [the center] has benefited from these monkeys. She stated, “They’ve taken in millions and millions of dollars to experiment on them.” We would be entirely in favour of it being moved to a sanctuary that satisfies the requirements of the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries.
Last week, negotiations to determine the future of the Oregon National Primate Research Center were started by the Oregon Health and Science University.
With 267 staff members and almost 5,000 monkeys, the Hillsboro facility is the biggest of the seven federally funded primate research facilities.
According to PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo, the center should have been closed years ago because it carries out operations that are “more the stuff of nightmare than the stuff of science.”
PETA said that the vote followed ‘sustained pressure’ from the organization, along with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Oregon legislators, Governor Tina Kotek and residents of the state.
‘During these discussions, the primate center will stop breeding monkeys as OHSU works with NIH to devise a plan to end the torment and killing of 1,200 monkeys a year in pointless tests,’ the organization said.
“Adjectives simply cannot adequately describe the horror of the abuse that occurs inside the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) because it is so heinous and widespread.”
The organization cited experiments, including one that separated young monkeys from their mothers and deliberately frightened them and another injecting nicotine or surgically implanting nicotine pouches into the animals.
Elliot Spindel’s nicotine experiment intended to see the effect of the drugs on the monkey’s children, and in one example he gave the animals high doses of vitamin c, removed their fetuses and performed ‘lung function’ tests on them before they were killed and internally studied, according to PETA.
Elinor Sullivan, who performed the separation experiment on the subjects, also published two experiments which saw seven-month-old and then 14-month-old monkeys being killed by exsanguination, or ‘bleeding out.’
‘Experimenters have deviated from approved protocols, exposing monkeys to additional pain and distress,’ the animal rights organization said.
Guillermo added that the experiments in the center ‘is more the stuff of nightmare than the stuff of science.’
‘The rest of the scientific world is moving ahead…all the public had to hear is that the [center] straps monkeys into chairs and electro ejaculates them and that’s all they needed to know to be in favor of closure,’ she said.
According to Guillermo, PETA conducted two undercover investigations into the center, one in 2001 and another in 2007, and ‘from that time to this, nothing has changed.’
The center’s largest benefactor, the National Institutes of Health which has poured in tens of millions of dollars each year, announced in April that it would be ‘adopting a new initiative’ to focus more on human-based research technologies.
After a vote in February by the OHSU board, which pushed for President Dr Shereef Elnahal to convert the center into a sanctuary for monkeys, Elnahal told staff at a recent OHSU Faculty Senate meeting that a sanctuary would only go ahead if it was fully funded
According to Guillermo, PETA conducted two undercover investigations into the center, one in 2001 and another in 2007, and ‘from that time to this, nothing has changed.’
‘For decades, our biomedical research system has relied heavily on animal models,’ NIH Director Dr Jay Bhattacharya said in the release. ‘With this initiative, NIH is ushering in a new era of innovation.’
‘This human-based approach will accelerate innovation, improve healthcare outcomes and deliver life-changing treatments. It is a significant advancement for patient treatment, public trust, and science, he continued.
Guillermo called the NIH’s announcement a ‘good start,’ but believes they haven’t moved fast enough and the center ‘should have been closed down at least a decade or more ago’ when the New England National Primate Research Center shuttered its doors.
While animal welfare activist groups continue to push for the center to halt its research on primates, an opposing and recently formed nonprofit, Oregon Voices for Biomedical Research, launched their ‘Save Science Oregon’ campaign.
The campaign is calling for the center to continue its research, as spokesperson Diana Gordon told Oregon Live that the group of ‘concerned citizens and scientists’ has hopes of correcting misinformation and defending the advancements the research offers.
We believe that science has been intruded upon by politics in a way that is not appropriate. Science is not political… it is an endeavor attempting to help all of us,’ Gordon told the outlet.
Defense of the center revolves largely around the medical advancements that the research facilitates, which Gordon argued could not be done with computer models and lab-grown tissues.
‘Everyone in our group… looks forward to the day when animals are no longer needed in research… but it’s just not right now,’ she said.
The discussions to decide the center’s fate, however, are expected to continue on until August and current employees grow ever-more concerned for their jobs and research
The center has been responsible for a large number of studies on vaccines, infectious disease, neuroscience, reproductive health and aging, aiding advancements in cancer treatments as well as HIV and infertility.
Guillermo told the Mail, however, that ‘the experimenters who use monkeys at the primate center are primarily concerned with keeping their jobs.’
This establishment has operated for 60 years. Remarkably little has come out of it that would benefit humans, and it’s time for them to acknowledge that and move on to better science,’ she continued.
‘Instead they’re reframing it that their work is essential. We are aware that it isn’t. Where are the HIV vaccines? Where are the tuberculosis vaccinations? Apart from a published work, what else has enabled a professor to advance to the tenure track?
According to Elnahal, the negotiations are intended to prevent the center from being forced to close, but researchers at the center have stated that they represent a serious threat to their work.
However, talks to determine the center’s future are anticipated to last until August, and present staff members are becoming increasingly worried about their jobs and research.
Research would be curtailed, new breeding would cease, and animal studies would be limited if the center were converted into a sanctuary, but current research might go on.
At a recent board meeting, Molly Shallman, a union-represented researcher, stated that the center’s staff members are feeling “growing stress” over what will happen to their employment. According to the site, she also accused the center of lying when it claimed that federal authorities were the ones who started the talks.
Research would be limited if the facility were converted into a sanctuary; new breeding would cease, and animal experiments would be restricted, but current research may still proceed.
Elnahal noted the need for tact during discussions and admitted that there hadn’t been much contact, but that any final deal will be made public.
He also said that the NIH approached the center with a draft agreement, but he had been in talks with federal officials prior to the draft.
The publication was informed by OHSU authorities that the talks were “ongoing, deliberative, and confidential.”
PETA claims that as of 2023, the center housed 5,403 monkeys and received about $335 million in government funding during the 2023 fiscal year.
Guillermo added: ‘I think we’re headed in the right direction, but the university probably needs a kick to get going.
‘I would urge them to consider that the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has stated publicly that he would like the primate centers to close and transition into sanctuaries.”
“Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) agreed to enter negotiations with NIH on turning the Oregon National Primate Research Center into a primate sanctuary,” NIH said in a statement to the Mail. This decision reflects NIH’s plan to reduce the use of animals in NIH-supported research and to advance evidence-based science through new technologies and research models.’
OHSU said that ‘negotiations with NIH are ongoing, deliberative and confidential. There is currently no final agreement in place.
The Daily Mail reached out to Oregon Voices for Biomedical Research for comment.
