“Bizarre” Psychological Experiments on Primates Cost U.S. Taxpayers Nearly $100 Million
Activists release secret video showing “distraught” monkeys in “wasteful” experiments by the National Institute of Health.
Animal advocacy group The White Coat Waste Project (WCW) have released disturbing footage of distraught monkeys being tormented with rubber spiders and mechanical snakes - objects primates instantly fear - just so their reactions can be observed.
The release of this shocking video comes after the WCW sued the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which had refused to release footage and other materials related to the “bizarre” psychological experiments.
Experimenters in the study “sucked out parts of these monkeys’ brains or destroyed them with toxic acid to intentionally worsen the primates’ fear.”
These shocking experiments have cost taxpayers $1.7 million in 2019 alone, and over $16 million since 2007. The cost to taxpayers, and the cruel suffering of primates, highlight the urgency of WCW’s work in campaigning Congress to ‘de-fund’ such wasteful and cruel NIH primate experimentation.
Despite growing opposition to animal experiments, the NIH’s use of primates in ‘maximum pain tests’ has actually increased by 370 percent in recent years. The WCW exposed that these primate tests include “destroying areas of monkeys’ brains so that they can no longer recognize faces, addicting baby monkeys to alcohol, and exposing them to the Ebola virus.”
Just this week, the NIH revealed that it has infected over 18 primates with coronavirus.
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