monkey drug experiment wiki

Is it time to end biomedical experiments on monkeys?

Some researchers argue testing on primates is both unethical and irrelevant, but vaccine developers and others say it saves human lives — and the pandemic is their latest example, niranjana rajalakshmi • february 11, 2022.

Confining monkeys in small cages instead of their natural forest environment changes the results of experiments, some researchers say. [Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

Chimpanzee justice, roni jacobson • november 19, 2012, the monkey in the mirror, mary beth griggs • january 19, 2011, the end of biomedical research on u.s. chimps may imperil their wild brethren, mark d. kaufman • february 17, 2017.

In 2015 , the National Institutes of Health banned experiments on chimps, our closest genetic relatives . But that hasn’t ended tests on other primates, despite never-ending criticism from both ethicists and some researchers.

This is the kind of research that Pfizer and Moderna relied on to get their COVID-19 vaccines to the market as soon as possible. Tests on rhesus macaques were important in speeding along the process, says Matthew R. Bailey , president of the Foundation For Biomedical Research . “To argue that primate research should not be conducted is itself unethical. It means you’ve delivered a death sentence to a lot of people who are depending on that research to save their lives,” he says.

But other animal experts, including several who formerly worked in research facilities, think it’s time to consider an outright ban on all monkey experiments. Noting that experimenting on chimps and other large apes is already banned in most countries , including the U.S., they argue that the monkeys in medical experiments suffer physically and psychologically. That raises not only ethical concerns but also scientific ones, since research monkeys living in a lab are more restricted in their movement than are monkeys that are free to roam.

In justifying the phase-out of chimp testing, NIH Director Dr. Frances Collins stated that “ new scientific methods and technologies have rendered their use in research largely unnecessary.” However, Collins has also said that continued testing on monkeys and other primates is vital to improving human health – even though chimps are actually much closer to humans than monkeys. We share almost 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, compared to just 93% with rhesus monkeys .

“It’s deeply illogical,” asserts Lisa Jones-Engel , a former primate scientist at the University of Washington who is now a consultant to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). “It’s just about money. Monkeys are smaller and cheaper than chimpanzees. There are more of them available in the wild. It has nothing to do with scientific or ethical relevance.”

The cost associated with buying and maintaining chimps was one of the factors that influenced the NIH to ban chimpanzee testing, according to Dr. Larry Carbone , a former university veterinarian in San Francisco who is now an independent animal welfare consultant. “Chimps will cost you $100,000, and you spend $100 a day to house them”, he says. On the other hand, a rhesus monkey costs about $7,000, and just $15 to $20 per day to house and feed, Carbone adds.

Ultimately, the NIH concluded that “chimps are not useful enough” to justify the expense and the regulatory complications, since chimps are also an endangered species, unlike rhesus macaques, Carbone says.

No one knows exactly how many monkeys are used in research projects in the U.S. because the private companies that do much of the testing don’t have to disclose that information, according to Carbone. However, a 2019 federal report puts the total at more than 68,000. Even so, there was a monkey shortage when the COVID vaccine research was at its peak — one that still continues. “The shortfall of monkeys began in 2018 and their overall demand increased when the pandemic struck”, says Sheri Hild , an NIH program director for primate research.

The strongest case for continuing to use monkeys in experiments is for research on diseases like HIV and Ebola : diseases that monkeys are known carriers for . “The immune systems between humans and monkeys are so similar. That allows the testing of new treatment interventions,” says Caroline Pereira Bittencourt Passaes , who studies HIV-induced inflammation in rhesus macaques at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. “Giving HIV vaccines directly to humans would be a disaster,” she says.

But even in HIV research, monkeys are not an ideal experimental model for humans. For one thing, they tend to get less severe HIV infections than humans, making it more difficult to design appropriate drugs and vaccines.

Opponents of monkey testing, like Jones-Engels, extend this argument, claiming that “95% of drugs and treatments that work in animals, including monkeys, actually fail in humans.”. However, the NIH says the 95% failure rate applies to the entire drug discovery process, not to the animal tests that occur just before the human clinical trials.

COVID-19 vaccines are the latest reason most biomedical researchers continue to defend monkey experimentation. In a recent statement , a network of seven primate research centers argued that monkey tests were essential for getting fast approval for the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, as did a group of European researchers . Both companies tested their vaccines in monkeys and found they could induce SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.

Monkey testing was important in the development of the COVID treatments and vaccines because the SARS-CoV-2 cellular receptor in humans is more similar to the one in monkeys than in other lab animals such as mice, according to the Pasteur Institute’s Passaes. “Monkeys have given a very valuable contribution to all these preclinical studies of drugs, monoclonal antibodies and of course, vaccines to fight COVID pandemic.”

But there was a dark side to some of that COVID-19 research, according to Jones-Engel. She says some monkeys used in the research were captured in forests in India and Bangladesh instead of being bred in captivity. “That is completely antithetical to best practices in the scientific community,” she says. “These monkeys were not bred for experiments. They were not specific-pathogen-free. How do you expect the results to be accurate?” For India’s COVAXIN vaccine, for example, authorities allowed researchers to capture 30 rhesus monkeys from the wild.

Primatologists point out that monkeys in cages are very different from their wild cousins, which inevitably affects experimental outcomes. “Some primates can walk for 50 kilometers a day, and they cannot do that in any lab. That’s a very big limitation,” says Constança Carvalho , a biologist at the University of Lisbon.

Wild monkeys not only range widely, they also engage in a variety of mind-stimulating behaviors, everything from gouging holes in tree trunks and cracking open nuts to being curious like humans . Restricting their movement and suppressing their natural instincts in the lab setting makes some scientists doubt the accuracy of research conducted on them.

“Housing animals with large brains in cramped cages has a powerful effect on their physiological and neurological systems”, says John P. Gluck , a retired primatologist at the University of New Mexico who now works on animal welfare issues. “Practically, primate models are not as good as we once thought and that has a lot to do with how we house them.” This could be relevant for vaccine studies, since at least one study has shown that separating young monkeys from their families and housing them indoors affects their immune system .

If monkeys are used at all for research, Carvalho thinks that they should be treated the same way as humans. “You need to have someone appointed to be in charge of defending the best interests of that particular animal, in the same way you have someone responsible for a child. And this is not what is done in labs.”

Operators of primate research labs, however, say critics are misrepresenting conditions at some facilities. At the California Primate Research Center , for example, most monkeys are housed outdoors with their families, says Kent Pinkerton , who is a scientist there. Outdoor monkeys “are happy with each other,” he adds, “and it’s not just one monkey with its offspring — it’s a colony.”

Opponents of monkey research cite the rise of alternative ways to model how humans may respond to experimental drugs, including 3D-printed human tissues and organoids and even organs on chips . Most of those tools, however, are still being developed and are not ready for widespread use yet.

And even when they are ready for prime time, alternative techniques like organs on chips can only be complementary tools to animal models, according to Hild, the NIH program director for primate research. “They definitely cannot be viewed as replacements for a whole organism,” she says. “They are just refinements that help in reducing animal usage in research.”

Even critics like Gluck acknowledge that ending primate testing overnight would slow down drug development — for the simple reason that the use of animals is such an ingrained tradition in biomedical research. “If all the primate research centers were emptied in the middle of a pandemic like this, it would have slowed down vaccine development, because that’s the way we think,” Gluck says, “even if it’s inferior thinking.”

About the Author

Niranjana Rajalakshmi

Niranjana Rajalakshmi is a veterinarian from South India. After a master’s in veterinary microbiology, she has combined her subject matter expertise with her fervor for storytelling and transitioned as a science journalist. From the three seasons of her city – summer, summerer, and summerest – she thinks moving to NYC will add at least one more season to her life and more flavor to her writing. Niranjana enjoys cooking, singing, and feeling nostalgic about her furry patients.

Experimenting on other species is fundamentally flawed because while they are like humans in their ability to feel pain and suffer, their physiology differs significantly from humans’. That’s why drugs that have passed animal tests with flying colors have sickened and even killed humans. Testing drugs on animals is as unnecessary as it is cruel. A prime example is the development of COVID vaccines. To expedite the process, the FDA and NIH allowed potential COVID vaccines to go to human clinical trials without first being tested extensively on animals. If they had required the usual years of animal tests, we still might not have an effective vaccine available.

YES YES YES! There are kinder and more accurate research methods available that take advantage of cutting-edge technology instead of cutting into animals.

It’s good to see this being written about, but the article needed some additional vetting. For instance: “But even in HIV research, monkeys are not an ideal experimental model for humans. For one thing, they tend to get less severe HIV infections than humans, making it more difficult to design appropriate drugs and vaccines.”

Monkeys are immune to HIV. Monkeys used in HIV research are infected with a different retrovirus called SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus.) So, a different species being infected with a different virus is claimed to be HIV research.

I think that it is barbaric to experiment on any animals. How could any human experiment on any animal knowing the pain and suffering is going to be inflicted on that animal. This is something that needs to stop.

Yes let’s let’s end this!!!! Please! Hard to see these monkey suffering!

Yes shut down these labs. How can a human being do this. It’s barbaric. A person that does this has no soul or feelings.

A big thank you to the author of this article. How can we respect or believe the medical researchers for being so cruel to animals!! I agree their motivation is purely money and trying to win a prize. Leave the animals to live their lives free of human cruelty. People fighting for animal rights deserve a huge prize.

I wish someone would let people know that the monkey videos are staged and the monkeys were abused and most are dead, Kaka and Deim ones, multi pages fooling people thinking they are good people and treat Kaka like family, someone please make an article about what happen.

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Monkey drug trials 1969.

Last week I found a list of the top ten unethical experiments that had been done throughout the many years of Psychology that involved humans and animals. Out of the list there was one such study that I found to be particularly interesting, and surprising that such an experiment was ever aloud to be conducted. This study was done by Deneau, Yanagita & Seevers (1969) and was known as the monkey drug trials.

The experiment was looking at the effects of self-administration of drugs by the monkey. In other words, whether a monkey would become addicted to drugs and as a result self-administer itself in order to maintain the drug abuse. The monkeys were first injected with drugs (some monkeys received cocaine, morphine and amphetamines) and researchers observed the behaviour afterwards, consequently the monkeys became dependent on the drugs. The experiment found that the biological traits were similar to that of humans, and results suggested that one of the key motivations for drug abuse was the psychological dependence. This experiment found the key reason why drug abuse takes place which can help researchers and physicians provide a psychological treatment which can help people with a drug addiction give up. As this kind of experiment cannot be done on humans, the only option for the researchers was to use monkeys. However, animals and humans are different and therefore findings on non-humans should be cautious when suggesting a similar trait can be found in humans. In some cases there can be many differences between animal behaviour and human behaviour, therefore results for one another cannot be generalised.

A classic example of this is the study looking at the effects of the drug thalidomide on morning sickness for pregnant women (as cited in Developmental Psychology, 2010). The study had tested the drug on rats and found there were no side effects caused from the drug and that the drug was effective in treating morning sickness. This drug was given to pregnant women, which alleviated the symptoms of nausea. However, when the women gave birth, there were serious abnormalities with their babies’ physical appearance. For instance, the babies would either have a absence of a limb or have limbs attached to their abdomen, and serious deformities in the eyes, heart, ears etc. This shows that whilst animals may not show effects to certain drugs, humans may, and therefore whenever experiments are being conducted on animals, researchers should not suggest that findings could be generalised to humans.

The monkeys trials were also highly unethical as the subjects suffered pain, withdrawal symptoms and in some cases died from an overdose. The Helsinki declaration was founded in 1964 and from there has been regularly updated on the principles of good practice. It first stated that, “the welfare of animals used for research must be respected”. This was the start of ethical guidance for non-human subjects. From here the APA ethical code added more guidance on the way animals should be treated and gave strict instructions for the grounds of when an experiment on animals is acceptable. For example animal research should not harm the animal or distress it on any way (APA). In this experiment, the monkeys would self-harm themselves (ie. Take chunks of fur off their abdomen when under the influence and in some cases the monkeys died) therefore under the APA ethical code, the researchers would be unethical and would not be allowed to conduct this experiment.

This experiment in my opinion is not useful to psychology, as it lacks ecological validity. Animals do not have the capability of administering drugs in the outside world, unless human interference trains them to self-administer. Although the results show a similarity in monkey and human behaviour in the self-maintaining of drugs, there is no real benefit to this finding and therefore the end does not justify the means.

APA guide. http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/guidelines.aspx

Deneau. G., Yanagita. T., & Seevers. M. H. (1969). Self-administration of psychoactive substances by the monkey. Psychopharmacologia, 16, 30-48. Doi: 10.1007/BF00405254

Helsinki declaration. http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/

Shaffer. D. R., & Kipp. K. (2010). Developmental psychology childhood and adolescence. 8 th Edition. Wadsworth.

Monkey Drug Trials

By: Donya Alhussainy

Aim: In 1969, an animal experiment was conducted for the purpose of watching the effects of drug use and addiction take place. The experiment was looking to see if whether the monkeys would become addicted to drugs and as a result administer drugs to themselves in order to continue the drug abuse.

Procedure: First, the monkeys were injected with cocaine, morphine and amphetamines and after researchers began observing their behavior. After that the monkeys were then taught how to abuse the drugs so after that the monkeys were left with the a supply of drugs

Results: The monkeys became dependent on the drugs and became a danger to themselves and eventually died. Researchers found that many many biological traits of the monkeys were similar to humans, the results suggested that the one of the main reasons of drug abuse is psychological dependence.

Analysis: This experiment is very unethical and cruel because they caused distress to the animals and the monkeys suffered from pain,withdrawal, and eventually died. The monkey trials also lacked ecological validity because animals do not have the capability of using drugs in the outside world unless they are trained to do so by humans. This experiment is also non-beneficial because other than finding out that human behavior and monkeys with drug abuse are similar it does not justify what we put those animals through.

Published by IB Psychology 2018-2019

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8 thoughts on “ Monkey Drug Trials ”

This experiment is cruel and unethical. This violates any kind of animal rights that might have been in place at the time. I don’t understand how this experiment got funding because it does not aid humans at all, it was just about seeing what would happen. -Maureen Quartuccio

This experiment did not clearly test with a purpose. They just gave monkeys drugs and then taught them how to use them. This is a clear violation of animal rights. We already know that humans use drugs so they were not testing anything profound. Jordan Marley-Weaver

This is such an unethical experiment that did not need to be tested at all. It was seeing if monkeys would become addicted to drugs, but we already know that humans would get addicted, so there was literally no purpose to the study. Not only that, but it also violated any animal rights that animals have. Ellie Panicola

This experiment seems terrible. There was no ethical purporse for this experiment, it seems like it was mainly just for experience and go against the rights of animals.-Micah Goldman

This experiment is very unethical and lacks a purpose. Not only did the animals suffer from the addiction it seems that the scientist didn’t even try to use rehabilitation. This experiment is not even realistic to happen because monkeys can not get access to drugs. Jennifer Batres

This is experiment is horrible. This also give people a reason to go against research on animals. This research had nothing to do with finding a way to reduce drug abuse or helping humans with drug abuse. This was just simply an experiment to abuse animals. — Asia McElmurry

This experiment is quite cruel, but it relates back to the debate we had on animal research. Many people may argue that this experiment was wrong, but acceptable because it helped researchers understand the effects of drugs on animals/humans. What makes this experiment more wrong than any other ones that also have caused harm on animals?

-Zanieb Al-Hanoosh

This experiment was just another case of unnecessary testing on animals to satisfy the curiosity of selfish humans. In many cases, animal use is just substituted for humans because of ethical guidelines, but if it’s not safe for humans what makes it safe for animals?!