New UMass Chancellor Gets Welcome Gift From PETA With Call to End Monkey Experiments

July 6, 2023 –
From PETA

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For Immediate Release:
July 6, 2023

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Amherst, Mass. – New University of Massachusetts (UMass) Chancellor Javier Reyes will receive an unusual welcome gift from PETA today: a boxful of appeals to end the school’s cruel and unnecessary menopause experiments on marmosets.

The package includes a plush marmoset dubbed “Anakin” wearing a QR code that links to the story of the real Anakin—a marmoset who was abused and killed in experimenter Agnès Lacreuse’s lab—an infographic about the experiments, a scientific critique by PETA neuroscientist Dr. Katherine Roe, an image of a marmoset imprisoned by Lacreuse, and sticky notes that say, “Don’t forget to shut down the monkey lab!”

UMass experimenters screw electrodes onto monkeys’ skulls, cut into their necks, deprive them of water, restrain them for hours at a time, and torment them in various other ways, purportedly to study menopause—which marmosets don’t even experience. To simulate menopause, experimenters surgically remove the monkeys’ ovaries, administer hormone-manipulating drugs, and use hand warmers on their bodies to mimic hot flashes.

“Zip-tying tiny monkeys into restraints and cutting them open to study a condition that doesn’t affect them is as absurd as it is barbaric,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “PETA is calling on Chancellor Reyes to use the ‘uncommon vision’ with which he is credited to end the pointless torment of marmosets at UMass and embrace modern, animal-free research that is actually relevant to humans.”

UMass’ extensive history of animal welfare violations includes severely burning a monkey—who died three days later—with hand warmers, failing to alert an attending veterinarian to sick animals, and permitting a monkey to escape, then injuring the animal’s tail so badly during recapture that it had to be amputated.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.