Nicotine Addiction Experiments on Baby Monkeys Suspended
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

White Coat Waste Project
October 2017

ACTION: Tell FDA: Release videos and stop baby monkey nicotine experiments

Our team recently came across a short description of an FDA laboratory that addicts baby monkeys to nicotine. Beyond that, it’s not listed on any federal research database it should be with more information on what it costs, its methods, or outcomes.

The FDA has announced it is suspending its nicotine addiction experiments on monkeys following pressure from WCW, thousands of our supporters and Dr. Jane Goodall.

White Coat Waste Project is fighting an epidemic of government secrecy about taxpayer-funded animal experiments, and now we’re challenging transparency failures at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Our team recently came across a short description of an FDA laboratory that addicts baby monkeys to nicotine. Beyond that, it’s not listed on any federal research database it should be with more information on what it costs, its methods, or outcomes.

As reported in an exclusive story broken by Rare:

Because the only publicly available information about the “Aspects of Nicotine Self-Administration in a Nonhuman Primate” study is a mere paragraph on the FDA’s website, WCWP filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request back in December asking for related documents. In its response, however, the FDA supplied WCWP with a 64-page document containing redactions of the project’s cost and completely withheld other related documents — including veterinary records for the primates used, photographs and videos of the experiments, and adverse animal welfare event reports — without explanation.

FDA failed to provide most of the documents we requested. But, from the limited materials it did send WCW, we now know that FDA is addicting two dozen squirrel monkeys as young as 1 year old to nicotine to determine what dose gets them addicted. For the experiments:

• Monkeys undergo surgeries to implant devices to deliver nicotine directly into their arteries
• They are forced to constantly wear nylon vests to contain the equipment implanted in them
• They are locked in restraint chairs and trained to press levers to receive nicotine infusions
• The monkeys are videotaped after they receive nicotine infusions to monitor for effects including vomiting, diarrhea, tremors.
• Each of the monkeys is each locked alone in a cage for 138 weeks.

Here’s a sanitized schematic of the cruel experimental set-up from the FDA documents:

All of FDA’s redactions and document withholdings constitute violations of federal FOIA laws, and our legal team is now challenging this by appealing the FDA’s open records failure.

This is a prime example of why the forthcoming federal audit of government animal experiments that we’ve secured is so badly needed. In the meantime, send an email to FDA officials urging them to release documents about their nicotine addiction experiments on baby monkeys.

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