12:30, Thursday, January 27, the animal advocacy
group,
Stop UBC Animal Research will stage “UBC’s monkey death row” to protest
the university’s brutal experiments on monkeys. The demonstration will include
activists dressed as monkeys in bright orange jail suits and in chains caged in
a mock jail cell.
WHO: Stop UBC Animal Research. Contact Brian Vincent at 604-551-3324, 604-618-1030,
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WHEN: Thursday, January
27, 12:30 PM
WHERE:
Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street (Robson Street side)
VISUALS:
Animal advocates dressed as monkeys in bright orange jail suits and in chains
caged in a mock jail cell. Signs that read, ”UBC Monkey Death Row,” “Stop UBC’s
Monkey Business,” “Dead
Monkey Walking.”
WHY: Every
year, UBC conducts thousands of experiments on cats, mice, pigs, rabbits, monkeys,
and other animals. After a month’s-long investigation, Stop UBC Animal Research
has discovered that UBC has been:
Injecting
toxins into monkeys' brains to simulate “parkinsonism.” A UBC report obtained by Stop UBC
Animal Research states that one researcher is using four to eight non-human
primates to create
in the animals “a new, progressively degenerative ‘model’ of Parkinson’s
Disease.”
According to the document, the UBC researcher’s experiment “uses
rhesus monkeys which are receiving injections of proteasomal inhibitors into
their brains. Head-holding devices have been surgically implanted into the
monkeys’ brains, and protrude from the top of the monkeys’ heads, to be hooked
up to frames when the researchers want to totally immobilize the animals
presumably for injection of drugs and for scans at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months.
The monkeys have been scanned after
implantation but before injection, for baseline (or starting point) information.
Some animals are to be killed at 6 months, some at 12 months.”
Administering
electroconvulsive shock to monkeys to induce seizures. Electrodes were applied to the heads of six rhesus
macaques through which the shocks were given, apparently to cause seizures. For
this the monkeys were only given a sedative and a drug to paralyze them.
There was no mention of pain relief. The sedative would not cause complete loss
of consciousness and inability to feel and, therefore, the concern is whether
they were capable of feeling pain and terror. Because they were paralyzed, they
would not have been able to show outward signs of suffering. The animals were
also subjected to the unpleasant consequences of repeated doses of anesthesia.
There is no mention of what happened to the monkeys.
Blinding
monkeys in vision deprivation studies. Six rhesus macaques were
deliberately blinded in one eye by cutting the optic nerve and allowed to live
after this brutal mutilation. A second group of monkeys had one eye deliberately
damaged by laser to cause a painful increase in pressure known as glaucoma. The
animals were allowed to survive this surgery and kept alive, without pain
medication, for weeks before being killed.
Injecting particles into the fetuses of pregnant
monkeys. Three pregnant rhesus
macaques were used, probably off-campus at a facility in the US. A tube was
inserted into the monkeys' abdomens and then into the fetuses
where particles were injected into the kidneys to cause damage. A
few weeks before the fetuses would have been born, the mothers were subjected
to abdominal surgery, the fetuses removed and killed after which tissues were collected.
