OHSU’s Lies to 6th Graders Prompt Cease & Desist From PETA
For Immediate Release:
October 24, 2022
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
When a representative from Oregon Health & Science University’s (OHSU) Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) visited sixth graders at The Cottonwood School of Civics and Science, 11-year-old Zuma Mullock asked questions based on PETA’s video exposés of the ONPRC, which revealed that monkeys were terrorized by staff; denied veterinary care and pain relief; driven insane by confinement to small, barren cages; and killed in experiments.
The OHSU representative then lied to the class, stating that PETA had manipulated video footage in order to make cages appear smaller than they are. In response, PETA fired off a cease and desist letter to OHSU and the ONPRC and another letter to The Cottonwood School’s director, Amanda McAdoo, urging her to cancel an upcoming field trip to the laboratory.
“The primate center, rather than admitting that animal care needs a major overhaul, has chosen to deceive students, including by attempting to show them only the few monkeys caged outdoors when hundreds of monkeys in tiny cages are being tormented in cruel experiments inside its labs,” says PETA Foundation Director of Litigation Asher Smith. “PETA is going to press this issue until OHSU retracts its false statements and is urging The Cottonwood School to replace its upcoming field trip with an activity that will teach students that 21st century science lies in human-relevant research.”
TeachKind—PETA’s humane education division—had previously written to The Cottonwood School’s director and board members, urging them to cancel the field trip and offering to host an age-appropriate presentation about modern research methods instead. TeachKind noted that, among other recent violations of federal animal welfare laws and regulations at the ONPRC, monkeys have been burned when left unattended on heating pads, been scalded to death in a cage washer, and died while trapped behind a cage. Over the past 40 years, the ONPRC has killed thousands of monkeys in flawed experiments that still haven’t led to effective human vaccines for HIV, tuberculosis, or other viruses and diseases. Much of its time and taxpayer dollars are spent on meaningless curiosity-driven experiments, such as trying to intimidate baby monkeys with a Mr. Potato Head toy.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
