White Coat Waste Project



Hi Taxpayer, we owe you something. I apologize for not
writing you sooner, but I'm writing to tell you thank you for all
that you've done to support us and our mission. Thanks to you,
we experienced the biggest Giving Tuesday in WCW history!










Hi Taxpayer - have we said thank you recently?

Thanks to you, WCW just had its biggest Giving Tuesday ever. In
fact, you helped us raise $100,000 in matching funds to shut down
even more labs!

That's not all, Taxpayer. Thanks to your consistent support in
2019, WCW notched this year's 5 biggest wins, anywhere, for
animals in taxpayer-funded labs:


Shut down USDA's Kitten Slaughterhouse and retired the survivors
from a lab that killed 3,000+ cats and rounded up dogs in China's
meat markets.
Ended EPA's animal testing program. WCW was the only group to
pass legislation that will help save 20,000+ lives per year.
Passed bills to cut NIH and FDA's primate labs, building on last
year's successful campaigns.
Cut VA dog testing to its lowest point ever. We closed 75% of
these experiments ... and 100% of painful dog labs at FDA and
CDC.
Secured the 1st-ever retirement policy for NIH survivors ... and
so much more!


Thanks again Taxpayer. As long as you're in the fight, we'll
continue to de-fund and defeat the bad guys... one government lab
at a time!

Onward,

Anthony Bellotti
President/Founder
White Coat Waste Project


P.S. Taxpayer, our work is FAR from over. In fact, we need you
now, more than ever. See below. As I write this, taxpayer-funded
"White Coats" are rallying the media. Their message? Lab
survivors should be killed, not retired. So please check out
Science Magazine's coverage and take action!





CONTACT CONGRESS »









Should aging lab monkeys
be retired to sanctuaries?

By David Grimm


It's been a long road to retirement for Bush the monkey-and not
just because he's spent the past 15 hours in the back of a van
motoring red-eye from New Jersey to Indiana.

For nearly his entire life, the 23-year-old macaque lived in a
lab at Princeton University. There, researchers conducted MRI
scans on him to understand which parts of the brain perceive
faces, and he spent much of his time in an indoor cage.

In 2017, with Bush suffering from arthritis and nearing the end
of his life span, the lab decided to send him to a sanctuary.



Bush, a cynomolgus macaque, was a research monkey at Princeton
University for nearly 20 years. DAVID KELLY CROW



"We had a very deep emotional relationship with Bush," says
Sabine Kastner, a Princeton neuroscientist who oversaw studies on
the monkey. "We were all very sad the day he left, but we were
happy for him."



The university took more than 2 years to find a sanctuary it felt
could provide high-quality care for Bush and had space for him.
Finally, on 1 October, Princeton animal resource staff checked
Bush's vitals, made him a care package of his favorite toys and
treats, and placed him in a van that would bring him here to
Peaceable Primate Sanctuary, a former farmstead amid sugar maples
and cornfields where he'll spend the rest of his days.

Bush's big move is part of an unprecedented retirement
collaboration: Princeton, along with Yale University, has just
partnered with the sanctuary to ensure both schools can
seamlessly retire more monkeys there in the future.

It's a sign of surging interest in sending former research
monkeys to sanctuaries instead of euthanizing them or
transferring them to another project. A growing number of
scientists say retirement is the right thing to do for these
social, intelligent creatures, and it can be cheaper than keeping
the animals in labs.





CONTACT CONGRESS »




"We want to do right by these animals," says Peter Smith,
associate director of Yale's Animal Resources Center. "It's good
for them, and it's good for the people who have spent their time
caring for them."

Yet the effort faces many obstacles. More than 100,000 monkeys
are in U.S. research facilities, and retiring even a fraction is
a challenge. Labs often can't afford it or can't find a sanctuary
they trust or that has space. And some primate researchers say
sending monkeys to sanctuaries is simply a bad idea.

Every one of these animals could contribute to crucial research,
they argue, because monkeys can offer a deeper understanding of
how our minds work as well as speed the search for cures for
Ebola, Alzheimer's, and other diseases.

Critics also fear that even talking about retirement could
eventually lead to all monkeys disappearing from biomedical
studies, as happened with chimpanzees. "I don't know of any
monkeys that are not needed in biomedical research," says Amanda
Dettmer, a comparative psychologist and primate researcher at
Yale.



Animal care staff at Princeton University prepare to transfer
Bush to the van that will bring him to Peaceable Primate
Sanctuary. DAVID KELLY CROW

The discussion has grown even more heated in the past few months.
Animal activist groups have pushed legislation that, if passed,
would compel federal agencies to draft retirement plans for
monkeys and other lab animals.

"Taxpayers bought these animals, and we want the government to
give them back," says Justin Goodman, vice president of the White
Coat Waste Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group that has found
an increasingly sympathetic ear in Congress by painting animal
research as a misuse of tax dollars.

Meanwhile, according to a National Institutes of Health (NIH)
report released in 2018, demand for research monkeys will
continue to rise; the number used in experiments reached a record
high in 2017, even though the total number held in U.S. labs has
declined slightly over the past decade.

Higher demand could cause a space crunch at biomedical facilities
and expand the pool of older monkeys, making the question of
retirement more urgent. All of this has left individual labs
caught in the middle, struggling with whether to retire their
monkeys-and the best way to do so.

As Bush, groggy and anxious, prepares to enter his new digs, it's
unclear how many others will follow in his footsteps.





CONTACT CONGRESS »





A growing conversation

The dirt road leading into Peaceable Primate opens up into 30
hectares of patchy grass bordered by tufts of woods.


On the left, behind a chain-link fence, a couple of baboons chase
each other through open concrete cylinders in an outdoor play
yard. On the right, a single rhesus macaque with fluffy auburn
fur scales a wooden climbing structure inside another play area,
this one attached to a green, ranch style building with a red
roof. Bush waits just inside.

He's still in the wooden shipping crate he has been in since
leaving Princeton. He pushes a couple of fingers through the wire
mesh on top and peeks out cautiously, revealing a chestnut coat,
stubby triangular ears, and bushy gray hair below his nose,
giving the impression of a Mark Twain mustache. "I know, it's
superscary," coos Laura Tarwater, head of animal care here.
"Don't worry, we'll get you out of there soon."




Bush peeks cautiously out of his wood crate after arriving at
Peaceable Primate Sanctuary. ALYSSA SCHUKAR

Another Laura paces nearby: Laura Conour, director of lab animal
resources at Princeton. She flew here to make sure Bush arrived
safely, and she hovers around his crate like a nervous mother
dropping her kid off at college for the first time. "He likes
grapes-he likes to peel them," she tells Tarwater. "He likes the
crunch of banana chips."

Tarwater and an animal caretaker shuffle Bush's crate farther
inside the building. Here, 13 macaques live alone or paired in
cinder block and wire runs the size of small bedrooms, filled
with perches, swings, and rubber toys. Some animals are squat,
long-tailed cynomolgus macaques (or "cynos") like Bush; others
are lankier, short-tailed rhesus macaques. A few squawk and climb
their enclosure to peek at the newcomer.

Tarwater and the caretaker set Bush's crate down firmly against
the gate of his new run and open the doors on both to let him
inside. He hesitates for a few minutes and then gingerly makes
his way in. "It's his arthritis," Conour says. "He's probably
stiff from the ride."

Like Bush, every animal in the building came from a research
facility.





CONTACT CONGRESS »





Sixty-five percent of monkeys used in NIH-funded projects are
rhesus; they're typically involved in brain studies or tests of
therapies such as vaccines. Another 15% are cynos, which
constitute most monkeys in industry labs that test drug safety.
Thirteen other primate species-including baboons and
marmosets-make up the rest (see graphic).

None has been part of the retirement conversation until recently.
For the past decade, the focus has been on chimpanzees. In 2010,
in response to public and congressional pressure, NIH
commissioned a report that concluded most biomedical research on
chimps was unnecessary. Five years later, the agency announced it
would no longer support invasive research on the animals and
would retire all its chimpanzees.

Where the monkeys are

Most U.S. research monkeys live in four main types of facilities.
In 2015, the last year relevant data were available, industry
labs held the most.

Primed to rise

The total number of monkeys held in U.S. facilities has trended
slightly downward over the past decade, but NIH expects these
numbers to rise as researchers request more monkeys for studies
on topics such as vaccines and the aging brain.


(GRAPHIC) X. LIU/SCIENCE; (DATA) NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH;
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Animal activist groups are following the chimpanzee blueprint in
their public relations campaigns, pushing for monkey retirement
as a way to reduce-or one day even eliminate-use of the animals
in research.

Last year, White Coat Waste orchestrated a congressional letter
that urged federal labs to disclose what they did with monkeys
after experiments ended. In May, the group got members of the
House of Representatives to include language in a report attached
to a proposed NIH spending bill that asks the agency to reduce
its use of monkeys and formulate a plan to retire them.

That same month, House members working with the group introduced
a bill that would require all federal agencies-which own about
9000 monkeys-to create policies to retire lab animals. (The
Senate followed with its own bill.)

None of the proposed legislation has passed, and none would force
agencies to retire their monkeys.





CONTACT CONGRESS »





But researchers have been blindsided before, when efforts by
White Coat Waste ended studies on squirrel monkeys, cats, and
dogs at several federal facilities.

Adding fuel to the retirement conversation, a January memo to
Congress from the Department of Health and Human Services-which
includes NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and
the Food and Drug Administration-stated that it is working toward
retiring lab animals. "We are supportive of the adoption of cats,
dogs, and primates when relocation is safe and medically
appropriate," the agencies wrote.

The proposals target only federal research, so they wouldn't
affect academic institutions. But a few are moving ahead with
their own plans.

A pipeline to retirement

A half-hour has passed, and Bush seems more at ease in his new
quarters. The sanctuary staff open a small door that leads
outside to his own play area, with barrels to crawl into,
swinging ropes made of firehoses, and bright orange balls stuffed
with treats. Bush inches toward the opening and stops. He has
never been outdoors. He has only seen the sun through a skylight.
"Come on, Bushy!" Conour calls. But he just stares through the
door at the world beyond.

"All of them eventually go outside, but we don't force them,"
says Scott Kubisch, the sanctuary's founder and director. "Being
retired is all about having choices."

Kubisch talks about the sanctuary with the affection of someone
who has spent more than 2 decades building it from nothing,
largely with his own hands. He had the idea for Peaceable Primate
in 1996, when he was a primate keeper at the Lincoln Park Zoo in
Chicago, Illinois.

He wanted to do something for laboratory monkeys after their
research days ended. So he started a nonprofit, asked friends to
collect coins in monkey-shaped piggy banks, and took money from
his retirement savings to buy land here, more than 2 hours south
of Chicago, near a farm where he lived as a kid.

"On weekends, I would come down and build the chicken coop and
put in fences. Every tree you see here, I planted," he says.
"People at the zoo thought I was crazy."

In 2014, a friend left Kubisch a large donation in her will. With
it, he created an endowment for the sanctuary and constructed
most of the remaining buildings. He originally intended Peaceable
Primate as a baboon refuge, and the sanctuary took in its first
three baboons in 2016. "But we were getting a lot more calls from
universities trying to retire macaques," he says, so the
sanctuary began to take them in 2018. It now has 18 baboons and
14 macaques, including Bush.




Peaceable Primate staff move Bush to his new run at the
sanctuary. ALYSSA SCHUKAR

Such calls represented a shift: Many U.S. biomedical researchers
have traditionally viewed sanctuaries suspiciously, fearing they
are run by animal rights activists who will tar labs in the press
to gin up public sympathy and donations.

Other scientists have worried about the quality of care, noting
that unlike labs, sanctuaries don't have to register with the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which requires regular
inspections. (Many sanctuaries do seek membership with the North
American Primate Sanctuary Alliance, which imposes strict
standards of care.)

When you send an animal to a sanctuary, says Cindy Buckmaster,
chair of Americans for Medical Progress and former director of
one of the country's largest animal care and use facilities at
Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, "you're putting
them in a situation full of question marks."

Kubisch has addressed those concerns head-on. He is careful to
neither extol nor denigrate monkey research. "Our stance is that
we don't take a stance," he says. He also has registered
Peaceable Primate with USDA and always has at least three animal
care staff on the premises.





CONTACT CONGRESS »




Kubisch has tried to keep costs down as well. Sanctuaries can
charge up to $25,000 to care for a monkey, depending on how many
years it has left. (Macaques live an average of 27 years.)
Peaceable Primate asks for about $2500 per year per animal.
That's much more expensive than euthanizing a monkey, but it's
cheaper than keeping it at a university-"a fifth of what Yale
pays," says Smith, who oversees about 150 monkeys there.



Both he and Conour say monkey retirement had always been informal
and piecemeal at their universities. Each has retired only about
a half-dozen monkeys during their tenures. When they learned
about Peaceable Primate, they persuaded their institutions to
make a large financial investment. (Neither school would say how
much.) Conour and Smith say their universities felt that forging
a relationship with a single, well-regarded sanctuary would
smooth the path of retirement.

The result: a newly cleared plot of land just west of the macaque
house. It's not much to look at today-a few cinder block bricks
and a whole bunch of dirt. But by the end of the year, it will be
a new macaque building, with the same large runs and outdoor play
area as the first one. "In their indoor runs alone, they're going
to have 10 to 20 times as much space as they do at Yale," Smith
says.




Mealtime for Bush at Peaceable Primate Sanctuary includes cherry
tomatoes, grapes, and bananas. ALYSSA SCHUKAR
Bush will eventually move in here, and the house will be reserved
for animals from Yale and Princeton. "It's going to be the Ivy
League building," Smith jokes. "They'll all be wearing tweed
coats."

The universities' arrangement covers the cost of the building and
lifetime care for six macaques from each school, even as old ones
die and new ones come in. "We now have a pipeline to retirement,"
Smith says.

But not everyone in the biomedical community is likely to get on
board.

Sanctuary skepticism

"Imagine you're a 70-year-old human who knows everyone in your
neighborhood, and then people pack you in a van and take you to a
strange, new place where you don't know anyone," says Dettmer,
the Yale primate researcher. "Even if it's beautiful, being
ripped away from everything you know can be devastating."

She points to an incident about 5 years ago, when 13 elderly
research chimpanzees were transferred to a federal sanctuary in
Louisiana. Within 2 years, nine had died. The sanctuary said the
chimps were sick and elderly, but many people in the biomedical
community blamed the stress of relocation.

Dettmer says the decision to retire chimpanzees to sanctuaries
was a mistake, one she fears is being repeated with monkeys. Even
older animals can be used in studies of the aging brain and body,
she says. "There's no such thing as a surplus monkey."

She, Buckmaster, and others also say none of the pending
retirement legislation is realistic-it offers no money for
retirement and creates no federal sanctuary, as was done with
chimps. To retire and care for just the few thousand monkeys in
federal facilities would cost more than $400 million, according
to Speaking of Research, an international organization that
supports the use of animals in labs. And because only about a
dozen U.S. sanctuaries now take monkeys, the sanctuary system
doesn't have space for even a fraction of them.




From his indoor run, Bush peeks out at his play area at Peaceable
Primate Sanctuary. ALYSSA SCHUKAR
Critics like Dettmer (who is active in Speaking of Research) also
worry about a slippery slope. Talk of chimpanzee retirement went
hand in hand with removing those animals from biomedical
research-a concern "in the forefront of researchers' minds,"
regarding monkeys, Dettmer says.

Dettmer says she understands the emotional appeal of monkey
retirement but argues that the needs of humans should come first.
"We're not just concerned about the welfare of animals," she
says. "We're concerned about the welfare of society."

Finding a way forward

In the swirl of opinions, labs are trying to find their own way
forward. Some universities have already reached out to Smith to
see whether they can create a retirement pipeline, too. Conour
says a drug company has contacted her. "Right now, we're the cool
kids on the block," she laughs.

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, is taking a
different route. It's considering creating its own sanctuary, on
a farm in the Maryland countryside. Having its own facility would
be cheaper and easier than sending monkeys to an outside
sanctuary.


What's more, university staff "would see the animals they cared
for and came to know, sometimes since they were babies, enjoying
their postresearch lives," says Eric Hutchinson, associate
director of research animal resources at the university, who came
up with the idea. "And the public would see that an institution
can be committed to both animal welfare and high-quality
biomedical research."





CONTACT CONGRESS »




For labs going it alone, the Research Animal Retirement
Foundation may be able to help. Founded by former monkey lab
manager Rachele McAndrew in Gilbert, Arizona, the organization is
trying to raise funds for scientists who want to retire monkeys.

It also offers advice on finding and working with sanctuaries.
"We want to be a one-stop shop for labs interested in
retirement," McAndrew says. Smith says the interest is there. "I
think it's going to be a fairly hot topic for the foreseeable
future."

Even Buckmaster, with her concerns about the sanctuary community,
has found one she trusts and has retired close to a dozen monkeys
there. "My pipe dream is for a small network of government-owned
sanctuaries spread throughout the country that could take any
type of research animal," she says. "The public wants that. We
want that. These animals deserve that."

Kubisch has his own dream, hoping to continue to grow his
sanctuary. "I think we could eventually house up to 500 animals,"
he says. "I want to be the go-to place for retirement."

Tomorrow, Bush will venture outdoors for the first time. He'll
wince at a blast of wind against his fur. He'll stare curiously
at birds as they chirp overhead. And he'll push his hand into the
dirt, feeling it envelop his fingers. Then he'll look behind him
at the small door to his run, perhaps pondering whether he should
go back inside-or remain in the sun.





CONTACT CONGRESS »















To stop taxpayer-funded
animal tests, we must first stop the $15 billion+ in wasteful
government spending.

We find, expose, and
de-fund wasteful government spending on animal experiments. To
change public policy, we unite liberty lovers and animal lovers
with hard-hitting investigations and public policy campaigns.











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