S7. E10: Sarah Kite: We Can Do Better Than This
“Historically some of the leading airlines in the world were responsible for transporting these monkeys. So, you had national flag carrier airlines, such as such as British Airways, American Airlines - all of these big airlines were involved in transporting these monkeys in the hundreds and thousands every year on commercial passenger airlines. And, rightly the public were very concerned, there was a growing swell of, public opinion that was opposed to not just non-human primates being transported by airlines, but other animals as well. So there has certainly been a big move away from passenger airlines transporting monkeys, which has caused problems for the research industry in being able to obtain the monkeys.”
– Sarah Kite
Sarah Kite is co-founder of Action for Primates, they campaign on behalf of non-human primates globally.
Despite their status as our closest living biological relatives, non-human primates continue to suffer and be exploited by people across the globe, whether in their native habitat, in trade and transportation, in research laboratories, in private homes, in zoos, as entertainment, or as food and body parts.
Sarah has been doing this work since the 80s and although much has changed since then – we no longer test on chimpanzees, much hasn’t changed. According to PETA, in the US, more than 100,000 nonhuman primates (mostly monkeys) are used in research laboratories every year. These are highly intelligent, social animals and we know and have known for decades that almost every single bit of this research fails in human trials.
A report from Faunalytics shows that, “approximately 100 vaccines have shown effectiveness against HIV-like animal viruses, but none prevent HIV in humans. Up to 1,000 drugs have shown effectiveness for neuroprotection in animals, but none for humans. While the biomedical research industry is quick to claim victories, the reality is less glamourous: nine out of ten drugs fail in clinical studies because they cannot predict how they will behave in people; only 8% of drugs tested on animals are deemed fit for human use; one meta-study found that animal trials overestimate the likelihood that a treatment works by 30% because negative results often go unpublished. Fortunately, using animals in scientific research is not a foregone conclusion. On the contrary, there is a burgeoning field of alternatives to animal research, and many such alternatives are already in use today.”
Not only are we breeding thousands of non-human primates in labs, for testing here in the USA, but we also import them from Asia and Africa by the planeload, meaning that they are in cargo holds for as long as 24 hours, some die before they make even it to the lab. As horrible as that sounds, those are the lucky ones.
We can do better as human beings. Sarah Kite has been fighting for just that for her entire career.
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In gratitude,
Elizabeth Novogratz
Learn More About Action for Primates
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