Journal Retracts Paper by Colombian Lab Now Under Criminal Investigation—but NIH Opens Door for Future Funding: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
January 16, 2025

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA’s Lead Projects Manager, Dr. Magnolia Martínez, regarding separate decisions by respected academic journals this week to retract one article and issue statements expressing concern on four others on studies by experimenters from the Caucaseco Scientific Research Center and its affiliated Colombian organizations, along with experimenters at collaborating universities and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. PETA contacted the journals after exposing the National Institutes of Health-funded (NIH) research conglomerate in an 18-month investigation. Following PETA’s exposé, local authorities rescued all the monkeys and mice used in the malaria studies and confirmed monkeys were illegally captured from their natural homes. Currently, the couple who run the conglomerate are under criminal investigation:

Caucaseco Scientific Research Center and its affiliated organizations were a mess, and it’s difficult to imagine that anything coming out of that ramshackle stack of cages under a plastic tarp could be considered science. Journals must examine every study they’ve ever published by Caucaseco and retract them accordingly. NIH is apparently less rigorous. Despite the closure of the “laboratory,” the illegal capture of monkeys, and a criminal investigation into the Colombian experimenters, NIH, which had already handed them $17 million—and even collaborated with the outfit before PETA’s investigation—has informed them that they can again apply for funding. NIH’s failure to hold foreign laboratories’ animal experimenters to any decent standard prompted Representatives Troy Nehls (R-Texas-22) and Dina Titus (D-Nev.-01) to introduce the CARGO Act, which would prohibit NIH from funding animal studies outside the U.S. The bill is expected to be reintroduced in the current Congress.

NIH documents are available on request.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.