Why Madison?
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Why Madison? 1. Madison is home to one of the eight National Institutes of Health's flagship primate research laboratories, the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center (WPRC). 2. WPRC's first director, Harry Harlow, was an architect of the NIH Primate Research Center System. 3. Harlow's work is a significant part of the foundation for the claim that human and other primates' subjective experiences are of a like kind. 4. WPRC is the only one of the eight NIH flagship primate labs that the public can physically touch; the others are shielded behind fences, are located on large acreages, and are generally completely out of sight. 5. WPRC is the only one of the eight centers located in a state capital. 6. WPRC is the only one of the eight centers located in a community with a history of and potential for significant sustained public debate over controversial societal issues. 7. The population of Madison is small enough that the issue can be heard without being overshadowed by the shear number of potential news items in other locales. 8. The University of Wisconsin, Madison's activities and practices are always newsworthy in Madison. UW, Madison hosts and defends WPRC. 9. WPRC director, Joseph Kemnitz has stated in the press that all the centers operate in the same way. 10. WPRC is an accurate model of the government's general practices in this arena. The secrecy, the violations, the suffering, the questionable research, the unwillingness to entertain open public discussion; these characteristics are duplicated throughout the system. Simply, a constellation of historical factors coupled with current practices in Madison involving monkeys creates a possibility for sparking national debate over the use of the animals most like us.
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Madison's Hidden Monkeys is a joint project of the |
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