Workers Bitten, Scratched at Disease-Ridden Mesa Monkey Colony; PETA Files Federal Complaint
For Immediate Release:
July 30, 2024
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
In a complaint filed today, PETA urges the Phoenix area office of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to investigate a Mesa-based monkey-breeding facility owned and operated by the University of Washington in Seattle after uncovering documents that reveal a whopping 49 workplace safety violations in just three years at the operation.
The facility is an extension of the university’s Washington National Primate Research Center and confines 400 to 500 endangered pig-tailed macaque monkeys who are bred and shipped to the school’s laboratory and other facilities across the country for experimentation. Because the facility is on tribal land, it has received limited oversight from state agencies.
PETA obtained and reviewed documents revealing that primate center staffers are routinely bitten and scratched by stressed monkeys, accidentally poked with needles, and sometimes splashed in the eyes with bodily fluids from monkeys. Illnesses from contaminated equipment are also common. One staffer in Seattle said that “virtually everyone … gets ill at some point in their first six months” from staph or shigella infections or being around “aerosolized fecal matter.”
The primates at the Mesa facility harbor a number of pathogens that are readily transmitted to humans, including shigella, salmonella, staphylococcus bacteria, and the deadly herpes B virus—a disease carried by monkeys that’s fatal to 80% of humans who contract it. Cases of herpes B exposure appear to have been handled differently at the primate center facility in Seattle, where workers were more likely to be sent to the UW hospital emergency room for evaluation and treatment. A 2021 investigation by The Arizona Republic found that infections and diseases were rampant at the Mesa facility and contributed to monkeys’ deaths.
“Workers are routinely injured, sickened, and exposed to the deadly pathogens that run rampant in the University of Washington’s monkey facilities,” says PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “PETA calls on OSHA to investigate this dangerous and apparently incompetent facility before these violations turn into a public health emergency.”
Many of the safety incidents that PETA uncovered may have also violated the federal Animal Welfare Act but were apparently never reported to authorities as required. In response, PETA filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture last month asking the agency to take action and, if appropriate, recommend civil and/or criminal penalties through the U.S. Department of Justice.
Meanwhile, just two months after PETA called for the ouster of Michele Basso as primate center director and provided the university with evidence that she oversaw multiple violations of animal welfare laws and worker injuries, the school removed her from the position on May 31.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
