Animal rights activists, some dressed in monkey suits and posing in cages, will protest today at Belmont’s McLean Hospital against a controversial Harvard Medical School study that involves zapping primates with massive doses of radiation.
“Monkeys are highly social, sensitive and intelligent animals who suffer immensely in laboratories,” said People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals investigator Kathy Guillermo. “Condemning them to a lifetime of torment, pain and confinement at McLean Hospital for another trivial NASA experiment about space travel is unjustifiable.”
The National Aeronautics and Space Commission is spending a reported $1.75 million to zap 28 squirrel monkeys with radiation levels comparable to three years of space travel. The animals will be dosed in New York and shipped to McLean to live out their lives in cages under the watch of Harvard doctors. PETA officials say similar tests on monkeys have caused fatal cancer, cognitive decline and premature aging.
Harvard officials have declined to comment. PETA members were scheduled to protest outside McLean at noon.
While NASA officials have stood by the project, PETA says computer modeling or testing on former astronauts could provide quality data.
“Experiments such as these not only harm animals but also suggest that human beings are not creative or compassionate enough to pursue knowledge and explore space without ruthlessly hurting others,” PETA officials wrote in a recent letter to NASA.
Belmont state Rep. William Brownsberger, a Democrat, said he was unaware of the monkey testing in his district but called the program “troubling.”
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