PETA Scientists Accept “Invitation” to Tour UMass Amherst Monkey Laboratory
PETA scientists are accepting what we hope, despite all evidence to the contrary, is a genuine invitation from University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) experimenter Agnès Lacreuse to see her laboratory.
You read that right. The same university that PETA had to sue to obtain photos, videos, and documents from Lacreuse’s invasive tax-funded experiments on tiny female marmosets is now—so they say—opening its doors.
Lacreuse extended the invitation in the Daily Collegian, announcing that she would “welcome PETA representatives to see the lab.”
In response, PETA neuroscientist Dr. Katherine Roe and PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel sent a letter agreeing to see the laboratory, while also requesting to witness the experiments and take photos and/or videos.
Behind Closed Doors
Lacreuse claims to study age-related changes associated with menopause—a condition that marmosets do not experience. She drills into the monkeys’ skulls, threads electrodes through their tiny bodies, zip-ties them into restraints, and subjects them to a battery of tests. Once she’s done, she kills the monkeys. Since 2023, she’s killed more than half of the marmosets in her laboratory. That’s 16 lives cut short for junk science.
Marmosets used in Lacreuse’s experiments have sustained injuries, suffered frequent bouts of diarrhea, fought with other stressed monkeys, and escaped their enclosures, according to records PETA obtained.
PETA has repeatedly contacted the university to discuss our concerns, and UMass officials have repeatedly ignored them while blocking our efforts to obtain public documents detailing what the marmosets endure. In 2022, we filed a lawsuit against UMass to compel the university to release records relating to Lacreuse’s experiments that it has so far failed to provide as required by Massachusetts’s Public Records Law.
Lacreuse’s invitation is a welcome surprise and if genuine, our scientists are standing by to arrange a date. We’ll keep you updated on our findings.
What You Can Do
Please TAKE ACTION and urge UMass officials to end these cruel and pointless experiments:
