Primate experimentation is a growing crisis in the United States.
      Though the incompleteness of USDA reporting leaves us without truly exact numbers, a safe estimate would put the annual experimental toll for primates at 60,000 a year in the United States alone, with potentially another 10,000 primates kept in laboratories for breeding and conditioning.
      There are many different kinds of primate experimentation currently being performed in the U.S. With recent improvements in technology we might have expected that this experimentation would have become less invasive. In fact, improved technology has had almost no positive effect on the degree of pain that primates feel, or the invasive nature of experimentation. Many of the experiments that are currently underway in our nation's labs have been underway for decades, using technology that originated in the 1960s.
      While many different kinds of experimentation involving primates are extremely brutal, one specific variety of protocol — brain-mapping in the visual areas of the brain — is both extremely cruel and very widespread. This general category of experimentation, which involves neural information processing in the visual system in macaque monkeys, is currently funded through 114 separate projects by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The most invasive version of this experimentation is currently underway at over 30 different laboratories while being supported by more than 50 separate grants. Every year, NIH wastes more than $13 million on this antiquated technology.
      While there are many different variations of this particular experimental protocol, the general procedures are largely the same. The primate, usually a macaque monkey, is first subjected to two different surgical procedures. In the first procedure (this summary is based upon the experimentation of Dr. Madeleine Schlag-Rey at the University of California, Los Angeles*), a scleral search coil is implanted under the skin near the primate's eye to monitor the position of the eye. The wire leads from this coil are attached to a pedestal made of dental acrylic material that is secured to the skull with screws and nuts. A metal restraint post is also attached to the skull with screws to restrict movement of the primate's head during the experiment. Additionally, openings are cut into the primate's skull, and recording cylinders are placed over the openings to allow the placement of electrodes directly into the brain.
      The specifics of this apparatus are well illustrated by the pictures that accompany this article [to view them, move your mouse over the existing pictures and they will appear]. These photos were provided anonymously by an employee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, another laboratory that conducts this kind of experimentation on primates.
      After the surgical procedures are completed. the monkey is trained to track a visual stimulus. This training involves confinement to a primate restraint chair. Liquids are often used as a reward during this procedure, so the primate is usually liquid-deprived as a way of insuring that water or fruit juice will be an effective reward. In some cases, the primate's liquid intake is limited only to the period when testing is underway. While the primates are confined to the restraint chairs, with their heads immobilized, they are presented with varying visual stimuli, and the firing of specific brain cells is monitored.
      These experiments confine monkeys to restraint chairs, deprive them of water, and subject them to severe stress. The experiments also have many other consequences for these monkeys, and none of these consequences are good. As you might expect, macaque monkeys are not used to having devices attached to their skulls. The use of pain relievers is often limited to the period directly following surgical procedures (if they are given at all). As a result of these conditions, the primates often handle the devices attached to their skulls, leading to serious problems such as bacterial infections.
      These problems are best illustrated by laboratory inspection reports that have been obtained from the United States Department of Agriculture. Inspection reports for the Brain Research Institute (BRI) at UCLA reveal appalling conditions. Reports from 1998 discuss cracked walls and peeling paint within BRI. Another entry describes the specifics of the monkeys' environment:

Some non-human primates were tethered with rusted chains that could drop down into and be dragged through cage pans containing feces and dropped food items...

There are many other problems within this laboratory, including the use of expired drugs.
      A list of 13 separate expired medications is contained within this report, with one drug having been out of date for a decade. Many of these drugs are anesthetics or pain relievers. The effectiveness of a pain-relieving drug that has been expired for 10 years must be questionable at best.
      There are also references to specific animals that appear to discuss animals involved in brain mapping procedures:

One macaque (Bao) noted with a discharge around its headset — animal was observed picking at headset/scalp juncture. Animal's behavior and discharge was not noted in records, although has had a history of infection in this headset. When animal was treated for infection from Dec. 1997 through Feb. 1998 and April 1998, there were gaps in records for treatments and headset care. Gaps and inadequate documentation found in post-op records concerning macaques used in BRI protocols — these include lack of documentation of post-op recovery and treatment, as well as large time gaps when documenting post op recovery monitoring. ... These observations as well as items noted above for expired drugs, cleaning and sanitation, and inadequate post-op documentation indicate that there may be a breakdown in oversight by the IACUC and attending veterinarian.

The intensity of one face belies the intensity of another (see rollover).

*Amador, Nelly; Schlag-Rey, Madeleine; Schlag, John: Primate Antisaccades.

I. Behavioral Characteristics. Journal of Neurophysiology, 80: 1775-1786, 1998.

continued on next page