Baby rhesus macaque
Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Our thanks to Nedim Buyukmihci for posting this information on Facebook and drawing it to our attention as well as to Action for Primates for posting about it and creating a “take action” opportunity to send a note objecting to this sad and cruel research.

Cruel research involving the removal and killing of unborn monkeys has been carried out at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) in the USA. Ten pregnant rhesus macaques were used as surrogates for pregnant women to look at the potential harmful effects of exposure to cannabis on the neurodevelopment of their unborn babies. Five macaques were fed tetrahydrocannabinol (THC – the principal psychoactive constituent of cannabis) long-term, and five used as ‘controls’ received no drug.

On gestational day 155, the mothers were subjected to caesarean section. Removing and killing unborn infants – foetuses who were almost (if not at full-term, the gestation period being 146-180 days) – was despicable and demonstrates an utter lack of humanity.

The research was publicly funded by the NIH, with additional funding provided by the March of Dimes, the Silver Family and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

Please speak up for these monkeys and against the cruel use of non-human primates to study human substance abuse.

Click here to take action. Note: if the letter does not send automatically, there are buttons on the site that allow you to copy the “to” list, the “cc” list, the subject and the message of the text. It only takes a moment!