Steeds meer druk op NASA om geen stralingsexperimenten uit te voeren op doodshoofdaapjes in primatenlab Belmont's McLean Hospital, Massachusetts (VS)

Pols, docs press NASA on monkey experiments

09-03-2010 By Dave Wedge, The Boston Herald, USA


Members of Congress and a national physicians’ group are going ape trying to halt researchers from zapping monkeys with radiation as part of a controversial Harvard Medical School experiment set to unfold in a primate lab at Belmont’s McLean Hospital.

SOCIAL CLIMBER: A baby squirrel monkey rides on its mom’s back at the Philadelphia zoo.

A group of eight Washington lawmakers sent a letter to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration last week urging the cash-strapped agency to cut off $1.75 million in funding for the study, which calls for 24 squirrel monkeys to be jolted with radiation doses equivalent to three years of space travel. The goal is to determine how a space mission might harm human astronauts’ brains.

“There is simply no ethical justification for putting these monkeys through these inhumane and possibly fatal experiments,” the letter states.

The letter calls the study “questionable science” and says the McLean testing is “redundant” because it is similar to Air Force experiments that yielded limited results in the 1990s.

Harvard and McLean officials did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement yesterday, NASA said the monkeys at McLean will “live in a social environment in full accord with federal guidelines.”

The nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, meanwhile, is filing a complaint tomorrow alleging that Dr. Jack Bergman’s planned tests violate the federal Animal Welfare Act. The complaint to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, a copy of which was obtained by the Herald, claims the testing violates rules that bar animal tests if an alternative is available.

Bergman did not respond to a request for comment.

The complaint also states that Bergman’s plan to keep the monkeys isolated in separate cages violates federal laws requiring researchers to create social settings for primates.

“Squirrel monkeys normally live in large groups in the treetops,” said PCRM spokeswoman Jeanne McVey. “The law says primates are so intelligent and so social that you have to provide for their psychological well-being.”

Dutch tourists are filming squirrelmonkeys in the wild at the Raleigh Falls in western Suriname.

Dr. John Pippin, who filed the complaint on behalf of the PCRM, said: “We think (the study is) full of holes. This is a wasteful expenditure of taxpayer funds.”

(Bron: http://news.bostonherald.com/)
(Bron foto: Boston Herald)