Primate Deaths, Propaganda Program Earn University Dubious Distinction

For Immediate Release:

May 8, 2006

Contact:

Matthew Mongiello 757-622-7382 

Davis, Calif. — Bringing to light the increasing abuse of animals in some of the nation’s premier university laboratories, PETA has compiled a list of the 10 worst offenders, and the University of California-Davis has come in at number four. Universities were chosen based on the worst federal Animal Welfare Act violations, the largest numbers of animals killed, the most painful and invasive experiments, and an unwillingness to make humane improvements.

UC-Davis houses approximately 5,000 primates, 550 dogs, and 800 cats as well as thousands of other animals for use in painful or distressing experiments. At its Inhalation Facility, pregnant and infant monkeys are forced to inhale tobacco smoke—even though the harmful effects of smoking are well known. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture leveled a fine of nearly $5,000 against UC-Davis for violations that resulted in the deaths of seven cynomalgus monkeys. The university’s negligence and failure to properly maintain facilities allowed the monkeys’ room to reach a scorching 115°F for many hours, slowly and painfully killing them.

Instead of reducing its use of animals in laboratories, the university has launched a propaganda program, the “CNPRC Education Outreach Program,” aimed at indoctrinating young children. The program gives kids a fictitious picture of happy, healthy monkeys at UC-Davis with their loving keepers, but it fails to show how the innocent primates are tortured and killed in their experiments.

Rounding out the list of academic animal abusers are the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Emory University, the University of California at San Francisco, Tulane University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Oregon Health and Science University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Columbia University.

“UC-Davis officials have turned an institution of higher learning into an animal Abu Ghraib,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “These people are wasting lives and money and are badly in need of a refresher course in ethics and the humane treatment of animals.”

For more information and to read about the other “winners,” please visit PETA’s Web site StopAnimalTests.com.