PRIMATE RESEARCH AT UAB: The Sad Truth

Early in 2005, Alabama Voice for Animals finally succeeded in obtaining documents detailing the nature of primate research* at UAB. Because UAB is a public school, their records were available to us through Alabama's Open Records Act, or Sunshine Law. The documents, which include experimental protocols involving primates and primate necropsy reports, reveal that UAB currently engages in invasive and painful experiments involving monkeys. According to the UAB's 2002 USDA/APHIS report, UAB houses 360 primates.

University of Alabama at Birmingham --Primate research Document Summary--

The project titled FMR Imaging of the Eye Stabilization Process is an extremely invasive experiment that involves not only multiple surgeries, but also water deprivation. The primates are subjected to a great deal of routine handling and daily confinement to a restraint chair, both of which are highly stressful for the animals. To prepare the primate for the experiment,  a series of surgeries are performed. First, two metal strips are bolted to the monkey's skull. Then, a head restraint post and 2 data recording cylinders are attached to these strips. Finally, holes are bored into the primate's skull to allow tiny microelectrodes to be fed directly into the animal's brain. In order to train the monkey to sit in the restraint chair and perform tasks, researchers deprive the primate of water for 20 hours each day. This ensures that the thirsty animal will work for water "rewards" during the experimental procedure. After all of the data has been collected and the animal is no longer useful, he is killed by exsangination-- in other words, he is bled to death.

Although this picture was not taken at UAB, the nature of the experiment  is very similar to the one described at left. The restraint rod is bolted into the animal's skull. The rod, when screwed onto the top of the retsraint chair, serves to immobilize the monkey's head. The primate is confined to a restraint chair.  This type of experiment, which studies visual neural information processing in monkeys, is highly duplicated in research labs across the world.

From UAB's PRIMATE NECROPSY REPORTS, we have learned a great deal about the suffering of individual primates at UAB: • According to this monkey’s necropsy report, “he was a self mutilator with an extended period of lesion healing and re-injury.” Self injurious behavior is a serious indication of behavioral disturbance and stress often exhibited by singly housed primates. Isolation is extremely distressful for primates. • ID # RQ2820: Another monkey, a 3 year old rhesus macaque suffered from chronic colitis. The overall poor condition of his Gastro-Intestinal tract mirrors the “necropsies of several of these undersized young macaques with multiple bouts of diarrhea, weight loss and general failure to thrive.”  Undersized primates with chronic colitis are clearly very unhealthy and this condition appears to be common. • A  2 year old female macaque, primate ID# CP7B, was found to be “in poor health.” The veterinarian found that she was “both too small and too thin.” Due to chronic inflammation of the Gastro Intestinal tract, she was treated for inflammatory bowel disease, although the condition persisted until her death. • Primate ID#APIK was infected with a Simian (monkey)- Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or SHIV. He was reported to be “emaciated.” The chronic diarrhea and weight loss experienced by this monkey “are among the expected outcomes of this experimental manipulation.”

*To view a listing of all of the animals used in research at UAB, click here.

Cages, pain and confusion are the norm for monkeys in research labs. The images are hard to look at, but they depict the reality of life in a lab. Learn more about primates used in research at The Primate Freedom Project. Visit Stop Animal Exploitation Now! (SAEN) to learn about investigating research labs in your town.

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