Thousands of potentially disease-ridden monkeys crisscross the U.S., often without legally required inspections, according to primate researcher Lisa Jones-Engel, Ph.D. The monkeys are destined for labs where they’re used for medical research that most often produces little in the way of meaningful results.

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. - May 27, 2022

The transportation of potentially disease-ridden monkeys used for medical research is a $1.25 billion international business.

In the U.S., much of that research — largely funded by U.S. taxpayers — is “irrelevant,” “misleading” and poses a serious public health threat, according to a senior research scientist at the Washington National Primate Research Center.

In an article she authored for the Independent Media Institute, Lisa Jones-Engel, Ph.D., who has studied primates for nearly 40 years, wrote:

“Despite decades of promises and hundreds of thousands of dead monkeys, experiments using monkeys have not resulted in effective vaccines for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria or other dreaded human diseases.

“COVID-19 experiments have shown the scientific community how irrelevant and often misleading monkey studies are.”

Conducting medical experiments on animals is fraught with ethical issues, but even more so when those experiments produce little in the way of meaningful results, according to Jones-Engel.

But in addition to the pain and suffering inflicted on the animals, the transportation of those animals poses health risks to humans.

Jones-Engel cited the example of an incident that occurred in January, when a truck carrying 100 macaque monkeys to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-approved laboratory in Florida collided with a dump truck near Danville, Pennsylvania.

The crash caused multiple crates of monkeys to burst open, and three monkeys escaped into the surrounding area.

Police said the shipment of monkeys was en route to the CDC facility from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, where they arrived from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation.

The shipment had not yet been inspected by a veterinarian to ensure the animals posed no risk to human health.

The Atlanta-based CDC said the agency was providing “technical assistance” to state police in Pennsylvania, The Associated Press reported.

Upon arriving and doing a risk assessment, representatives from the CDC decided the three escaped monkeys must be shot on sight to mitigate the possible spread of disease.

But before this was carried out, a crash witness stopped to assist at the scene and came in close proximity to the monkeys.

In doing so, she was potentially exposed to diseases commonly carried by the monkeys including:

- Viral hemorrhagic fevers, such as Ebola virus disease.
- B virus.
- Monkeypox.
- Gastrointestinal diseases (salmonellosis, shigellosis, campylobacteriosis).
- Yellow fever.
- Simian immunodeficiency virus.
- Tuberculosis.
- Other diseases not yet known or identified by the CDC.

The woman, Michele Fallon, tried unsuccessfully for more than 10 days to get clear health information and support from state and federal health officials.

“For the past two weeks I have been trying to get answers and information [from them],” Fallon told Penn Live on February 8. “I have been very clear with the Pennsylvania Department of Health about my exposure. I deserve answers,” she said.

Fallon ultimately tested negative for the herpes B virus, commonly carried by monkeys and potentially fatal to humans.

“The lack of transparency from the CDC about the status of the surviving monkeys or even the location of the CDC-approved quarantine facility to which they were headed is disturbing,” Jones-Engel wrote.

She added:

“Pause for a moment and consider the magnitude and cost of this monkey madness: In January, the disaster involving the truck transporting monkeys took place in Danville, next month, it could be in your community.

“No one is safe — the monkeys are on the move the moment they arrive in the United States. Packed into small wooden crates, separated from their family and friends, they’re terrified, cold and hungry.

“In this vulnerable and stressed condition, they are likely immunocompromised, which increases the risk that they will shed pathogens that can cause diseases in humans.”

Not all the monkeys make it out of quarantine alive, according to Jones-Engel, and the dangerous pathogens the CDC is screening for are often missed and show up months or years later, threatening public health and further undermining the utility of these monkeys as biomedical models.

Post-quarantine, the surviving monkeys are dispersed to commercial facilities and laboratories around the country.

“Even the experimenters themselves have acknowledged that the large colonies of monkeys at their facilities — in places such as Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and California — are a threat to public health,” Jones-Engel wrote . . .

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