PETA Claims of Animal Mistreatment at OHSU Continue

PETA's allegations Involve Monkeys Used in Stem Cell Research.

Photo: PETA

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - The Oregon National Primate Research Center has announced that it has cloned monkey embryos as a potential source for stem cells.

This announcement comes on the heels of news that a PETA investigator documented alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act during a four-month stint working as an animal husbandry technician at the facility.

PETA says the investigator saw that sick monkeys were denied adequate pain relief and prompt veterinary care, and one employee even mistook blood for Kool-Aid.

They also say workers sprayed cages with loud high-pressure hoses while the monkeys were still in them and tossed food into "filthy waste trays beneath the floors of the wire cages."

In the expected discussion about cloning monkeys, PETA hopes that the conditions for and the treatment of the animals used for these studies will not be forgotten.

"Apart from the dreams and fantasies of what cloning might mean for people, we need to look at the absolute reality of what cloning experiments already mean for animals."

PETA says many monkeys are caged in bleak conditions, and that they have revealed this information to the public and the media. They claim the animals are subjected to invasive experiments, as the failure rate for cloning is as high as 99 percent.

The group says, "rather than funding more 'exotic' experiments on animals, we need to insist that this institution funnel resources into the increasingly sophisticated field of non-animal research. Only by studying humans and human cells and using 21st century technology to analyze data will we learn about human pathology."

Source: PETA