Army Pledges to Stop Chemically Wounding Monkeys

October 2011 

For years, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense at Aberdeen Proving Ground has repeatedly injected sensitive and social vervet monkeys with a drug overdose as part of training exercises in order to crudely recreate the effects of a chemical nerve-agent attack, during which these animals suffered from seizures, difficulty breathing, uncontrollable twitching, vomiting, low blood pressure, and diarrhea, and some were later “found dead” in their cages.

For more than six years, PETA has fought this chemical attack training lab on animals by filing complaints with the U.S. Department of Defense, holding protests at Army events, and getting celebrities and medical experts to send letters to military officials objecting to the cruel practice. We also launched a website action alert through which more than 100,000 people contacted their congressional representatives, urging them to insist that the Army replace its use of monkeys in this lab exercise with sophisticated non-animal training methods.

We’re pleased to announce that U.S. military officials have finally confirmed that the use of monkeys in the Army’s chemical attack training courses is being discontinued and will be replaced with simulators.