Wednesday, 24 May 2023 07:00 AM
Regulatory
CAMBRIDGE, MA / ACCESSWIRE / May 24, 2023 / Harvard University Medical School has broken federal law in a series of "cruel and invasive experiments on baby monkeys," according to an animal advocacy group that has now filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the National Institutes of Health Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW).
A complaint lodged this week by Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research & Experimentation, (CAARE), requests the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the National Institutes of Health Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) investigate and impose corrective action and appropriate penalties on Harvard Medical School.
CAARE's complaint alleges the university failed to comply with the Animal Welfare Act and corresponding regulations in approving and carrying out a series of experiments on young monkeys to study how the brain recognizes faces.
CAARE charged that Harvard neuroscientist Margaret S. Livingstone has brought negative global attention to Harvard Medical School through unnecessary, cruel and invasive experiments on baby monkeys. In multiple experiments, newborn monkeys are separated from their mothers and in some cases deprived of sight through suturing their eyelids closed for one year. In other experiments, the baby monkeys have spent up to a year without the opportunity to see other monkeys' or human faces, with caretakers wearing welding masks.
In addition to visual and maternal deprivation, Dr. Livingstone routinely subjects these monkeys to major surgeries, including implanting multiple electrode arrays into their skulls for brain recordings. Researchers also insert head posts to their skulls and implant eye coils to track eye movements in brain recording trials. During experiments the monkeys are immobilized with helmets, and straps.
CAARE's complaint details how these experiments to study how the brain processes and interprets facial recognition can be conducted more ethically and effectively using state-of-the art science with human participants. A range of non-invasive brain imaging techniques, plus other methods, allow for superior research that focuses solely on the human brain.
"These highly invasive and distressing experiments on monkeys conflict with various sections of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and related policies under USDA and NIH which stipulate that the principal investigator must research appropriate alternatives to procedures that may cause more than momentary pain and distress to animals," said CAARE President Barbara Stagno.
"The examples cited in our complaint to replace animal use, which are by no means comprehensive, represent the best, leading-edge, human-relevant research available which is far more likely to yield cures and treatments for human patients," Stagno added.
"Moreover, these laws and regulations exist because we have a higher standard to adhere to when it comes to using animals. Scientists are obliged to minimize animal use through these policies. The experiments at Harvard simply disregard this essential principle," said Stagno.
CAARE said animal experiments conducted by Dr. Livingstone at Harvard have gone on for 40 years and have not resulted in a single cure or treatment for a human disorder. The experiments, funded by the NIH, have cost taxpayers $32 million over the past 25 years.
An additional violation is the failure of the University's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee to withhold approval for these experiments that do not comply with the AWA and regulations, said CAARE.
"Harvard Medical School's animal research oversight committee should never have approved these experiments. CAARE's complaint demonstrates unequivocally that Harvard had many choices besides conducting invasive, painful, emotionally distressing and outdated experiments on healthy infant monkeys," said CAARE.
Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research & Experimentation is a national 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, established to highlight and promote research without animals. CAARE's mission is to end animal suffering in laboratories by disseminating information about the power and progress of research without animals.
Contact: Barbara Stagno, President CAARE 914-839-0857; [email protected]
SOURCE: Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research & Experimentation