Paralyzed Monkeys Study: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
November 9, 2016

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

PETA’s statement on a study published today describing an experiment performed by Swiss Federal Institute of Technology experimenters in which monkeys were paralyzed by spinal cord injuries in order to test implanted devices designed to restore movement:

It’s time to focus on relevant human studies and get the paralyzed monkeys off the treadmills. If all medications were listed in the paper, as required, these monkeys did not receive adequate pain relief following the surgery to damage their spines. Standard surgical pain relief involves administering opioid drugs—which these monkeys were apparently denied—immediately before and after surgery. Just days after surgery, they were forced to run on a treadmill—which would make the pain worse—and stumbled and struggled to keep up with the speed. Furthermore, the two implanted devices used in this experiment have already both been successfully tested in humans. Experimenters must commit to avoiding experiments on animals instead of imprisoning and crippling them, isolating them from other monkeys (as these animals were), and denying them all that is natural and important to them.