Action for Primates
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Action for Primates |
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The following are take action items we have posted in 2026. See elsewhere for take action alerts from other years. In addition to the Take Action entries below, you can click here for petitions you can sign and share to help non-human primates around the world.
Index of action alerts; select date & title to access:
6 January 2026: Rhesus macaques force-fed alcohol for many months, infected with a virus, then killed in USA research
In another tragic waste of lives and critical resources, rhesus macaques were used and killed as "models" of chronic binge drinking in people (Poret et al 2025). The work was done at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in the USA, and was approved by its animal use committee. The US taxpayer paid for this inhumane and brutal treatment of monkeys through grants AA009803 and AA028459, from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), totalling many millions of US dollars.
Fourteen adult female Indian-origin rhesus macaques were used. The macaques were subjected to surgery to implant catheters that went into their stomachs. One group received ethanol injections to simulate "chronic binge" alcohol use. A 'control' group received water. The alcohol was at a concentration of 30%, totalling 13-14 grams of ethanol per kilogram of body weight, injected five days a week for over 14 months. No information was provided on the impact the alcohol had on the macaques.
Three months into the alcohol treatment, all the macaques were given the simian immunodeficiency virus into their vaginas. A little over two months later, they were treated with an antiviral medication. Nine months after the viral infection, all were subjected to 24 hours of food deprivation and then killed (euphemistically referred to as euthanized
by the researchers) by anaesthetising them and injecting them with a salt solution using an "embalming machine", to get tissues for study.
The researchers stated that macaques were to be killed before their scheduled deaths, if at any point any lost 25% of their body weight, refused to eat for four days, had major organ failure or had other medical or surgical complications that could not be treated. It was stated that two of the macaques were killed before the end of the study, but no reasons were provided.
Surprisingly, there was no description of how the macaques were housed, contrary to the ARRIVE guidelines required by many reputable journals (ARRIVE). As a result, we have to assume the macaques were singly caged with the standard lack of any meaningful social or other enrichment.
The researchers found that forced chronic alcohol use during infection with the simian immunodeficiency virus has effects on fatty tissue. These chronic effects are already known to occur in humans.
The public are repeatedly told that non-human primates are used in research only when absolutely necessary and only when there are no other alternatives available. This shameful experiment, which resulted in substantial suffering for the monkeys, demonstrates the meaningless nature of such assurances and a lack of commitment to stop using non-human primates. Not only is the information in macaques irrelevant to people given the fundamental differences between the two species, humane and ethical clinical studies have been and can continue to be done on human patients and volunteers in order to get data that are directly applicable to people. The macaques in this study had to endure the stress of captivity, almost certainly virtual social isolation, survival surgery, the severe negative effects of alcohol and death for what can only be considered frivolous reasons and clearly contrary to the Replacement criterion for the 3Rs.
Substance abuse, such as with the alcohol forced into these macaques, is a purely human disease. It is far more complex than simply using a drug. There are genetic, socioeconomic and other factors that must be considered if humans with drug addiction are to be helped. Continuing to concoct cruel and fatal experiments using non-human primates in the search for a 'magic bullet' that will cure people is not only costly, it is futile (Magliaro & Ahluwalia 2022). If we are serious about helping people, then we need to put all our intellectual and limited financial and other resources into responsibly and ethically studying the existing and huge laboratory already available to us: the world human population.
What you can do to help:
Cited information:
recommendations for the full and transparent reporting of research involving animals – maximising the quality and reliability of published research, and enabling others to better scrutinise, evaluate and reproduce it
...the impact of social, psychological and economic factors that determine the onset and persistence of addiction (and recovery from it) in humans. Indeed, the predictive validity of animal models of addiction is poor, with few effective treatments deriving from animal studies. ...the principal argument against animal experiments in the field of substances of abuse is that addiction in humans is a complex disorder which encompasses psychological, social and emotional variables that are impossible to model in animals.
Information on NIH grant support (funding) is taken verbatim from relevant publications. If you have difficulty with any links provided, you can do your own search through the NIH RePORTER site: https://reporter.nih.gov/, by copying and pasting the grant number into the Search field on the form.
Be aware that some grants include funds for more than experiments on non-human primates.
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