Victory! Airline That Flew Monkeys Involved in PA Truck Crash Ends Monkey Lab Shipments

Kenya Airways Informs PETA: Contract to Ship Monkeys ‘Will Not Be Renewed’

For Immediate Release:
January 28, 2022

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Kenya Airways, which has transported hundreds of monkeys from a Mauritius breeding farm to the U.S. to be used in laboratory experiments, has committed to ending this practice after its current contract expires next month. The airline’s decision comes just 24 hours after PETA contacted CEO Allan Kilavuka and Chair Michael Joseph urging them to consider what monkeys subjected to the long flight and then torment and death in laboratories endure. The monkeys whose crates spilled out onto a Pennsylvania highway last Friday following a truck crash were flown on a Kenya Airways plane that had landed at the John F. Kennedy International Airport earlier that day.

In his e-mail to PETA last night, Joseph wrote, “[T]he current contract for the transport of the Macaques (captive bred for export) will not be renewed when it expires at the end of February.”

“PETA thanks Mr. Kilavuka and Mr. Joseph and is relieved and happy that Kenya Airways is washing its hands of this bloody business. Monkeys are complex beings whose most basic needs—home, family, and community—aren’t met in laboratories.,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “Kenya Airways’ decision is important for all of us because the global transportation of monkeys also risks the possibility of emerging infectious diseases.”

PETA points out that the use of animals in experiments is failing to provide treatments and cures for humans. Studies show that 95% of new medications that test safe and effective on animals fail in human clinical trials. PETA scientists have developed the Research Modernization Deal, which provides a commonsense strategy for ending the use of animals and improving biomedical research. Importing monkeys for experimentation is carried out with almost no oversight. Monkeys arrive by plane from Asia or Africa after enduring sometimes days-long trips as they sit in their own urine and feces. They’re trucked to undisclosed quarantine sites before being sent to laboratories across the country.

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