Univ. of Wisconsin Primate Deaths Discovered by USDA

When internal documents revealed that Dr. Ei Terasawa had left monkeys unattended while undergoing a ‘push-pull perfusion” experiment on their brains, and that one of the monkeys had died while researchers were taking a lunch break, the University of Wisconsin claimed that the incident was evidence that their system of oversight was working well. Newly discovered documents call this claim into question.

University oversight committee meeting minutes reveal that the Terasawa situation was discovered during an inspection by the United Stated Department of Agriculture (USDA) rather than the university’s own oversight system.

This revelation undermines any notion that the university is able to self-monitor itself. If the USDA inspectors had not discovered the situation, the university would still be defending Terasawa’s research as humane.

In a related document, a letter from Dr. Terasawa to the committee, she argues that the monkey who died was elderly. She argues that the committee is really at fault since it made a rule that lab personnel cannot eat their lunch in an animal procedure room. Her letter explains that the monkeys were experimented on for hours on end and that her assistants needed occasional breaks.

The university has lied to the public twice now about this incident.. First they kept the situation hidden, a situation they now refer to as being the most extreme sanction they have taken against a senior scientist, and then again, with the claim that the situation proves that their oversight system is working. There is no reason to ever believe anything they might say about their animal experimentation program.

“We feel really sorry for the terror being experienced by the spin-doctors. Such unequivocal evidence of slip-shod pseudoscientific cruelty must cause the most callous public information officer some trauma,” lamented Rick Bogle, organizer of the National Primate Research Exhibition Hall.

Last year, the university was forced to admit that three marmoset monkeys were killed after being “overlooked” when their cage was blasted with boiling-hot disinfectant. University spin-doctors neglected to mention that such problems have occurred in the past.

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