Primate testing CENSORED (Lawsuit Filed)
Litigation - Article Series from All-Creatures.org Articles Archive

FROM ALDF Animal Legal Defense Fund
March 2021

The Animal Legal Defense Fund has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Madeline Krasno, who was banned from commenting on the university’s public Instagram and Facebook posts after she criticized the university’s cruelty toward primates.

As an animal lover, Madeline Krasno wanted to work in the field of primate conservation, which led her to study zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But as a student caretaker for the primates at the university’s lab, she soon discovered the harsh realities of animal testing.

At the facility, Krasno saw a monkey subjected to an invasive cranial procedure that left an opening in his skull, who shook his cage bars and reached out his hands to grab in vain at passing humans. She witnessed a mother monkey and her newborn who screamed as they were separated so the newborn could be branded. Krasno had an infant monkey die in her hands during a seizure, and a mother monkey who clutched her dead newborn for more than a day until Krasno and a coworker were told to separate her from the baby — a distressing experience that ended with the mother pressing her lips to the baby’s head before retreating alone into a cage.

Now Krasno is being silenced by the university for exposing these horrors and advocating to stop the research, and your generous donation today will help us fight back and expose this exploitation! The Animal Legal Defense Fund has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Krasno, who was banned from commenting on the university’s public Instagram and Facebook posts after she criticized the university’s use of primates. Since UW-Madison is a public university, the silencing of Krasno’s participation in the comment sections of its social media violates Krasno’s constitutional right to engage in protected speech.

Government-funded animal experiments in labs like UW-Madison’s — which receives federal and state government funding — often go on with lax oversight. But the public deserves the truth about animal exploitation and how their tax dollars are being spent, and advocates have the right to share that truth! Your generous support today will help ensure no one who exploits animals can cover it up — and no one who speaks out about animal exploitation is silenced.

The primate research at UW-Madison’s Harlow Lab and Wisconsin National Primate Research Center has long been the subject of controversy. In 2014, we won a lawsuit against the university for their failure to provide public records related to inhumane and taxpayer-funded “maternal deprivation” tests, in which newborn monkeys were separated from their mothers to study the effect on the newborns’ psychological development. In 2020, the USDA cited UW-Madison for Animal Welfare Act violations that resulted in at least 20 incidents of primates requiring amputations of body parts such as hands, feet, and tongues.

But you can help end such abuse and expose animal cruelty that’s hidden behind closed doors. Please stand with us, with animals, and with advocates in the long, tough legal fights ahead with a much-needed gift today. 

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