Group files complaint with USDA to impose penalties on Harvard for experiments on monkeys that violate federal law

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES, June 1, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- An animal advocacy group has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), (Complaint number AC23-0602) alleging that Harvard University Medical School has broken federal law in a series of experiments on monkeys.

The complaint submitted on May 17 by Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research & Experimentation, (CAARE), requests the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) investigate and impose corrective action and appropriate penalties on Harvard Medical School if found in violation of the regulations.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

According to 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.”

Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research & Experiments 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

Barbara Stagno
CAARE
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