Protesters Call for End to Nicotine Experiments on Monkeys at OHSU

Portland, Ore.—International animal protection organization, In Defense of Animals (IDA), will hold a public education event at the main OHSU campus, distributing leaflets about OHSU’s nicotine experiments on primates. The protest will be led by IDA’s Matt Rossell, who worked as an animal caretaker for two years inside OHSU’s primate laboratories. Information describing decades-old nicotine experiments on pregnant monkeys, conducted by OHSU’s Eliot Spindel, will be distributed by volunteers.

WHEN: Thursday, December 6, 2007, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
WHERE: 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road (at the main campus building)

Spindel, who has received National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding of over $7.6 million, implants nicotine pumps in the backs of pregnant monkeys, removes their fetuses at various stages of development, and performs lung function tests on them, before cutting a major artery in their stomachs to kill them.

Thimble, one of the infants born to a primate mother used in Spindel’s experiments, is featured in IDA’s leaflet. Among Rossell’s worst experiences at OHSU was to witness baby monkeys being wrenched from their desperate mothers’ arms, which he described as “a chaotic, ugly, heart-wrenching scene… Once removed, the entire room of monkeys would erupt into total pandemonium—screaming, thrashing and crashing in their cages—some even reaching out through the bars in vain to get the baby back.”

In a November 5 letter, IDA’s president, Eliot Katz, asked OHSU’s president, Joseph Robertson, Jr., to end the experiments voluntarily so that monies can be redirected to anti-smoking efforts such as prevention and cessation education. OHSU’s response to that letter claimed that such efforts do not work, and that it will not stop the experiments.

An article this week in The Chronicle of Higher Education cited a 2002 survey, conducted by the NIH, in which 72% of post-doctorates and 59% of NIH grant recipients agreed with the statement: “The ‘peer review’ system of evaluating proposals for research grants is, by and large, unfair; it greatly favors members of the ‘old boy network.’” Eliot Spindel’s current NIH grant has been in place since 1992 and runs until 2012.

“Spindel has used too much of our money and killed too many animals – it’s time for OHSU to kick the habit of nicotine experiments on monkeys and their infants, and to end its dependence on NIH for this wasteful project,” says IDA’s president, Elliot M. Katz, DVM.