Feds Cite University of Massachusetts–Amherst After PETA Complaint

For Immediate Release:
February 12, 2024

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding a citation posted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture against the University of Massachusetts–Amherst (UMass) for violating animal protection laws. This action follows PETA’s call for a federal investigation into an incident in which a marmoset escaped and injured another caged, stressed monkey imprisoned in the laboratory of experimenter Agnès Lacreuse, who studies menopause using marmosets, even though they don’t experience it:

UMass is entrusted with millions of dollars in federal funds but can’t even secure the cages that they imprison monkeys in. This is a violation of federal animal protection laws, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has slapped the university with a citation following a PETA complaint. This is the fourth time that a monkey has escaped in the laboratory of experimenter Agnès Lacreuse, who apparently pays no more attention to animals’ living conditions than she does to good science. UMass needs to close her lab now, before yet another monkey is harmed.

The school should redirect its resources toward modern, non-animal research methods that will actually help humans, and we urge officials there to adopt PETA’s Research Modernization Deal.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.