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PETA Requires University to Clean Up and Take Corrective Action
For immediate release:
February 25, 2021
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Seattle – A federal agency says a University of Washington (UW) employee made “knowingly false” statements when it publicly stated that monkey experiments at the Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC) helped create the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. In an email received by PETA, the Research Integrity Office of the US Department of Health and Human Services told UW that while it is not a research fraud, UW can take “any administrative action” within the company. PETA, which has warned federal officials about the lie, is urging UW to publicly backtrack and remove anyone involved.
UW internal documents, obtained by PETA upon request from open sources, do not indicate that university officials have taken any action.
Last November, PETA Scientific Advisor Lisa Jones-Engel, Ph.D., attended an open meeting of the Animal Care and Utilization Committee at the University of Washington, which oversees the use of animals in the university’s laboratories. As this video excerpt As shown, committee chair Jane Sullivan read out a prepared statement saying that primate center experimenter Deborah Fuller had tested the Moderna vaccine in monkeys. When Jones-Engel asked for clarification, Sullivan stated, “You can see the minutes of the article’s publication.” She later added that Jones-Engel could email her after the meeting. In a subsequent email correspondence, Sullivan acknowledged that the Moderna vaccine had nothing to do with the WaNPRC experiments.
“If UW can openly lie about its role in the development of the Moderna vaccine, we must question the integrity of the entire institution,” says Dr. Jones-Engel. “This is a serious violation of public trust and UW must take action to fix it.”
WaNPRC’s long history of negligence, error, and incompetence has led to numerous references to violations of federal animal welfare laws. The baby monkeys died of physical trauma after being placed in new groups without proper supervision. In 2019, when the experimenter insisted on starting the operation, although the monkey did not starve, it vomited, suffocated, stopped breathing and died. In another case, a monkey who was used in a painful procedure was given an opioid analgesic that was diluted, likely resulting in inadequate pain relief. The monkeys at the primate center died of strangulation, starvation, dehydration, and veterinary error.
PETA has released a monkey video filmed by WaNPRC Experimenters. He shows how monkeys live for years, and sometimes for decades, in small metal cages barely larger than their size.
PETA, whose motto is in part that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – opposes specisism, which is a worldview focused on human excellence. A group letter is available upon request. For more information please visit PETA.org, click here or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram…
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