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My monkey: The life of r04040

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doglady:

My monkey: The sad life of r04040

I was there on the day he was born, in a Madison research lab. Five years later, I checked up on him

Bill Lueders on Friday 05/15/2009,
Credit:Wisconsin National Primate Research Center


The first entry, for April 26, 2004, sets the tone for much of what follows: "Born today, rejected by mother, male infant."

Thus begins the life story and paper trail of r04040, a rhesus macaque monkey at the National Primate Research Center in Madison. He's one of the center's nearly 1,500 "nonhuman primates" used for experimentation and research that draws $46 million a year into the UW-Madison.

But he's not just any monkey. He's — and I know this is an odd thing to say — my monkey. I was there on the day he was born, getting a tour of the facility for a story in Isthmus ("Inside the Monkey House," 6/4/04).

Back then, my tour guides brought me into a bright and sterile room in which r04040 lay in an incubator. At first he looked dead. Then he slowly opened his tiny eyes and looked at me. I may have been the first person he ever saw. (And what a sight I must have been, in the lab smock, mask, shower cap and clear plastic face shield all visitors must wear!)

In the five years since, I've often thought about r04040. What kinds of studies and experiments was he being used for? Was he even still alive? Would knowing what his life was like support the arguments made by the center's proponents, that it does vital research under the most humane conditions possible? Or would it bolster critics, who say these animals are pointlessly abused?

Some things I knew: r04040 had never had anything like a normal or natural monkey life. He'd never seen the sky or sunlight or grass or trees. He'd never foraged for food. The only living things he'd encountered were other monkeys and humans covered head to toe in odd garb.

His life was expropriated to serve human interests because humans have decided they have that right. He was conscripted by birth into a place where, to quote Arlo Guthrie, "you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected!"

As the five-year anniversary of my visit neared, I asked for records regarding the use and care of r04040. The UW ultimately gave me 25 pages of entries that collectively told the story of my monkey's life.

For several years, r04040 was housed in a pen with other juveniles. Now fully grown, he lives with another monkey in a tiny cage in a roomful of other similarly paired monkeys.

Monkeys in captivity can develop neuroses and even psychoses. They may engage in repetitive behavior like pacing, or self-mutilate. My monkey seems to have spent much of his life suffering from chronic diarrhea or being injured by cage mates.

But the most shocking thing was the experiments r04040 has been used for during his first five years — almost none at all. That prompted me to ask further questions of my monkey's keepers, and ultimately brought me back into contact with him, face to face.

The National Primate Research Center at the UW-Madison is one of eight such centers in the United States, all funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is home, at last count, to 1,186 rhesus macaques, 212 marmosets and 75 cynomolgus (a.k.a. crab-eating) macaques. The Harlow Center for Biological Psychology, located a stone's throw from the Primate Center, has an additional 500 rhesus macaques.

In 2007, the last year for which numbers are publicly available, Wisconsin led the nation in the use of monkeys for research. The total reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees animal research, was 8,559 monkeys, including 7,313 at Covance Laboratory on Madison's northeast side. More monkeys are being experimented on in Madison than any other place in the nation, perhaps the world. (Some other states have more monkeys, but the above numbers report only those used in experiments.)

For the current year, the Primate Center is receiving $42.7 million in federal funds, mostly from NIH, and about $3.5 million in nonfederal support, from foundations and industry. The UW's share in the center's costs, through the state's general fund, is nominal, about $250,000 a year.

The center's monkeys are housed in two large buildings near Regent Street. The UW has a master plan to double the size of its Primate Center facilities, to where it could house upwards of 2,500 primates. The center is optimistic it can snare some of the money the Obama administration is making available for such purposes.

About 150 monkeys a year die at the center, some as part of experiments, some from natural causes. About the same number are born.

Center director Joe Kemnitz and head veterinarian Saverio "Buddy" Capuano are generous with their time and remarkably open in their dealings with me. They seem proud of their role at the center, though both have been vilified over it. Kemnitz has twice had protesters show up at his home, in 2005 with a giant video screen showing ghastly images of primate research. Capuano has encountered "anger and ambivalence," even from within the veterinary community.

When the NIH office to which he referred me ignored my request for the center's annual report, Kemnitz gave me a copy, with nothing blacked out. Reports given by the feds to research critics redact the names of all researchers.

Most of the Primate Center's research focuses on AIDS, aging and stem cells. There are more AIDS-related studies than any other kind; the UW is a world leader in stem cell research; and the center's studies on how restricting calorie intake promotes longevity have recently been featured on 60 Minutes and CNN's Vital Signs.

Other studies concern bone loss, kidney transplants, movement disorders, stress and Parkinson's (funded in part by the Michael J. Fox Foundation). One recent study found that marmoset fathers exposed to a whiff of their own infants experienced decreased levels of testosterone. Now we know.

The center's annual report for the period ending Feb. 28, 2009, lists 26 core scientists engaged in research, and more than 200 affiliated scientists at the UW and other institutions. Over the last year, these efforts yielded 101 published papers, 88 of which mentioned the center.

That the center tracks such things is grist for its critics.

"Outside funding gives the school a reputation as a research institution," says Rick Marolt, a local opponent of primate research. "Researchers get labs, employees and can publish articles that will help them get professional recognition, tenure and promotion."

A native of the Twin Cities, Marolt moved to Madison in 1992. Eight years later, a local controversy over zoo elephants prompted him to attend a meeting of the local Alliance for Animals. "For the first time, I heard there were monkey labs in Madison," he recalls. "I instantly felt this was the most heinous thing in the world."

He still does. Marolt, 47, who teaches management courses at the UW and Edgewood College and does business consulting, sees primate research as a great and unnecessary evil, one in which UW officials, researchers and members of the press are complicit.

Animal experimentation, he says, is unreliable: "According to the FDA itself, 92% of the drugs found safe and effective in animals are not safe or not effective in people." Some are even harmful. Yet the agency insists that drugs be tested on animals first.

As for research into human pathology, adds Marolt, "The case is just overwhelming that nonhuman animals have not been good predictive models of human disease." And he questions the use of monkeys for AIDS research, since "monkeys do not even get HIV."

Marolt's main objections are not scientific but moral. As he puts it: "If researchers have proven that monkeys are very similar to people in cognition, emotion and social relationships — so similar that they are viewed as functional replacements for people in research — then why should monkeys not get similar ethical consideration?"

Moreover, Marolt disputes that one species ought to dominate another. He says that as recently as 30,000 years ago, three hominid species (including neanderthals) coexisted. Had they all survived, he asks, "Would the most powerful one have the right to experiment on the others? And what if you're not the most powerful one?"

Listed on the printout I received from the Primate Center are hundreds of events in the life of r04040 (see sidebar, "The Story of His Life"). It catalogs the chronic diarrhea and repeated injuries. But aside from routine DNA profiling and one brief placement in 2008, my monkey has apparently not been used for any research.

The animal welfare advocates I showed the report to found it appalling.

"r04040's life, taken as a whole, has to be balanced by the purported claim that using him is helping us," says Rick Bogle, Madison's best-known opponent of primate research. He sees no evidence of that. "So far, in his five years of life, it seems likely that he has been miserable. And for what?"

But Kemnitz and Capuano, who pair up for two interviews with me in Kemnitz's spacious office, see it differently. They think r04040 has had it pretty good.

"This animal has not had a difficult life," says Capuano. "He's healthier and happier than a lot of animals without being obese." The traumas he's experienced are "the normal things you're going to go through growing up."

Like chronic diarrhea and attacks by cage mates? Absolutely.

They say r04040's diarrhea, now less frequent, is not necessarily stress-related, even though his lab record speculates that it was. They say monkeys who live in the wild — which Capuano suggests is actually more stressful — experience diarrhea. As for the injuries from other monkeys, he adds that this is "exactly what happens when they live in the wild."

Rhesus monkeys, males especially, engage in aggressive play and establish dominance hierarchy. Capuano says no monkey has been killed by another in the more than four years he's worked at the center (after prior stints at primate labs in Philadelphia and California). Kemnitz allows that "We've had animals who lose fingers and body parts in fights." But the center is a relatively safe environment due to how closely the animals are monitored.

"We had more serious fights among animals at the zoo than here," says Kemnitz, referring to the time when the center lent its animals for this use (see sidebar, "Center Operates Out of Sight, Out of Mind"). "In this setting, they'd be separated right away."

Yet r04040's record shows he was reported for injuries 20 times in 2008 alone, apparently without the culprit(s) being identified or removed. It wasn't until Jan. 26 of this year that r04040 was removed from the group setting and paired with another male.

According to Kemnitz, the median life expectancy of primates at the center — excepting those used in lethal research — is 26 years, longer than typical in the wild. (Marolt is wholly unmoved by this line of contention: "We could put people in the same environment, keep them free of normal risks, give them medical attention, and maybe they would live longer too. So what?")

My hosts explain that it's not unusual that r04040 has not been used for experiments. Most researchers want to wait until the animals are young adults. "Very few get used before they're five years old," says Capuano.

r04040, they say, has been assigned to a pending project for infectious disease work. It's been determined that he lacks natural resistance to infections, which makes him an ideal subject.

I press the pair on the sentience of monkeys. These are highly intelligent animals who can count, problem-solve, discriminate between types of music, even empathize (one study found that rhesus monkeys will go hungry if getting food means shocking another monkey). Isn't it sad to see them spending their whole lives in cages?

Kemnitz and Capuano refuse to concede the point. "If you watch the animals, they don't look chronically depressed or sad," says Kemnitz. "They were born here. They're fed and cared for." And the center tries "to make their lives as enriched as we can."

Capuano agrees. "I'm a veterinarian," he notes. "I took an oath to protect animals."

What about sanctuary? It's been suggested that, if animals are needed for research, it should be for limited periods, after which they can spend the rest of their lives in a more natural environment.

Several such sanctuaries operate around the country. Amy Kerwin, a former UW primate researcher, has been trying to create one here (see her Isthmus essay, "Giving Back to the Monkeys," 10/12/07). And the UW recently found new homes, including sanctuaries, for a colony of 75 cotton-top tamarins deemed no longer useful for research.

Kemnitz and Capuano regard my question cautiously.

"I understand where they're coming from," says Kemnitz of sanctuary advocates. "I'm sympathetic."

But there are difficulties. For one thing, a "major focus" of the UW's work is on aging, for which it needs geriatric animals. Then there's the issue of cost: Who will pay for these sanctuaries? Who will buy their replacements ($5,000 per rhesus)?

"Philosophically, I'm not opposed [to sanctuary]," says Capuano. "Financially, that's another story."

Besides, who says a walk-on part in a sanctuary beats a lead role in a cage? As Kemnitz puts it, "Just because animals are living in a different environment doesn't mean they're better off."

Early one morning in April, I arrive at the Primate Center to take another tour. As in 2004, I've had to get a two-doctor-visit tuberculosis test; what's new are the 30 pages of rules to review and sign.

The security guard summons Capuano, who leads me to a room where I meet some animal-care staffers at the start of their shift. The center employs about 100 people, half of whom have regular contact with monkeys.

Capuano warns me about some of the primate behavior we may observe: "These animals don't even know me very well. They may respond to us aggressively and show off."

We head to a locker room to strip to socks and underwear, then dress in official garb: full-coverage scrubs, mask, shower cap, face shield, a double layer of latex gloves.

On the elevator ride to our destination, one worker tells Capuano, "The guys you're looking at are getting big for their cage."

It's true. r04040 and his cellmate, r04060, are both nearing 10 kilos (22 pounds). The federal Animal Welfare Act requires that monkeys between three and 10 kilos each have 4.3 square feet of floor space (that's 25 by 25 inches). But at 10 kilos they must get six square feet.

We enter a room with about a dozen double cages, each less than four feet in any direction. r04040 and r04060 are the only two monkeys in the room, in an upper-tier cage. Capuano says the room is going to be hosed down later that day, as is done every two weeks. These two were left behind for now, pending our visit.

Both monkeys react with alarm to our intrusion, pacing quickly back and forth and on several occasions throwing their bodies against the side of the cage, making a crashing sound. I try to take some photos, but it's difficult.

Capuano asks if I'd like r04040 put into a smaller enclosure nearer the floor. This will require the assistance of one of the staffers I met a few minutes ago.

While we're waiting for her to arrive, Capuano shows me a pair of larger, vaguely zoo-like rooms across the hall, joined by a transit hole. Both are also empty, due to renovations. Here, I'm told, is where r04040 spent most of his life, housed with about 10 other rhesus macaques.

Capuano also shows me a room like r04040's that happens to be full of monkeys. They dart about and make a lot of noise. Each cage contains a red plastic ball, one of the "enhancements" provided by the center to keep the monkeys occupied.

For a minute I am left alone by the doorway of this room. Suddenly one monkey, a 10-year-old male, leaps onto the cage wall, clutches the wire with all four limbs and pulls his body violently into it, eight times in rapid succession: Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam!

In the hallway are two large cages, each containing about 10 tiny marmoset monkeys. They're perched shoulder-to-shoulder on the top rung, as though posing for a family portrait. We make our way back to r04040's room.

The staffer, whom I hardly recognize in her getup, holds a transfer cage up to r04040's enclosure and creates an opening. Like a shot he rushes in, hitting the far wall.

"See how fast he did that?" asks Capuano, explaining that the monkeys are taught this, for when they must be moved. r04040 exits the transfer cage into the smaller enclosure just as swiftly.

I make mostly unsuccessful attempts to photograph my monkey as he darts nervously around his strange new environs. He regards me warily, opening his mouth in an obvious threat. Even when he adjusts to our presence — becoming, says Capuano, "more comfortable" — there is still fear in his eyes.

I wonder what I'm doing here, taking his picture, using him. Is the trauma my visit causes justified because I plan to write about it?

Comments (9)
From Bill Lueders on 05/15/09 at 12:53 pm

Update: On April 20, 2009, the U.S. Department of Agriculture faulted the UW-Madison over injuries to two monkeys reported earlier this year by SAEN. Apparently, no fines were imposed.

The finding was obtained by SAEN on Thursday, May 14, the day Isthmus published its story on the Primate Center. The sidebar, "Center operates out of sight, out of mind." mentioned injuries reportedly sustained by one of the animals, Shepard.

In her April 20 memo, Dr. Dawn Barksdale of the USDA deemed that the part of the complaint alleging inadequate enclosures was valid. Two animals were injured, she wrote, because another monkey "had escaped from his enclosure that had not been properly secured by animal care staff," causing a serious injury that led to the amputation of one monkey's right index finger.

But Barksdale also found that a burn sustained by Shepard during a procedure was "accidental and appropriately treated," and that the individual involved received additional training. Indeed, the agency seems to have found that all of the injured animals cited in SAEN's complaint had "received appropriate veterinary care."


Last edited: 2009-05-15 12:55:23
From Jen Gross on 05/18/09 at 11:54 am

This is a very well-written, informative, and moving piece. Thank you to Bill Lueders for writing the article, and thank you to the Isthmus for running this piece. Keep up the great work!!
From Mike Schmidt on 05/18/09 at 2:46 pm

Bill,

The scientific community is of the overwhelming consensus that animal testing has great value for modern medicine.  Simply because you can find an expert who takes the contrary position does not mean your position is well supported.  Cases in point; Global Warming and Creationism.

No one involved in the animal testing stages of scientific inquiry enjoys that some of the animals are involved in terminal experiments, but the fact of the matter is that from HIV to Multiple Sclerosis, there are lethal diseases that kill humans in the hundreds of thousands every year that we absolutely must learn to cure.

You would be morally justified in killing an animal to feed a person who was starving.  Scientific research is that same problem writ large.  It is a very small number of animals and a very large number of people who stand a chance of living normal lives because of these animals.  It isn't taken lightly by the researchers.  If anything at all is being taken lightly, it is that you are minimizing the horrific toll these diseases are having on the people of the world.

It isn't that we have the right to experiment on animals.  Rather, that we have the ability to save human lives by so doing.  Thusly, we have an imperative.
From Rick Bogle on 05/18/09 at 7:47 pm

Mike Schmidt's comments would have a little more weight if they were a little more true. Most of the monkeys used at the UW primate center, and nationally, are macaques. To get a reasonable idea of how they are being used world-wide, go to Pubmed and enter macaque.

Coincidentally, I just looked at all the indexed 2009 publications yesterday. You don't have to do that, just look at the first page, the first 20 abstracts. As of five  minutes ago, these weren't papers about curing diseases. Today, a goodly number, maybe the majority of publications detailing experiments on macaques seem to have to do with brain physiology. The scientists putting the electrodes into the monkeys' heads and sewing the coils to their eyes actually believe that monkeys and humans think in very similar ways (I can provide quotes from their papers if anyone is really interested.)

Second, Mike Schmidt's comments suggest to me that he feels that animal research has been responsible for our improved health over the past say, 200 years. And this is the only way we will continue to make progress. But a fair look at the history of medicine suggests something much different. I recommend Roy Porter's The Greatest Benefit to Mankind as a starting place for anyone who would like to learn something rather than just opine. Quickly though, beyond any doubt, the overwhelming reasons for our improved health are first and foremost closed sewers, clean water, and to a lesser degree refrigerated transportation of food stuffs. The rest -- all medical research combined -- accounts for the merest tiny bit of the improvement in human health. This suggests that real advances -- advances that benefit millions of us are going to come from similar breakthroughs. Things like giving up a meat-based diet, well, that is, if you actually wanted to impact the leading causes of death in the US. No? Too crazy? Better to look for cures for rare spider bites?

D.I. Party's comments are weak as well. DIP says, "Equating animal rights with human rights is, well, just not equivalent not matter how you massage it." But DIP must not remember that this is just what people said about every group before they had legal rights. Now, after the fact, no one it seems thinks THEY would have been a racist... right.

It would be good to know more about Covance. the very little that is known, aside from the number of animals they use, is the result of months of undercover photographs and videos showing a brutality that helps explain why these places hide from the light of day. The same reason that the UW primate center shredded 628 video tapes, kind of like the CIA.

 
From Mike Schmidt on 05/18/09 at 10:17 pm

Rick,

You are using a strawman argument.  I never said, never even implied, anything that would lead a reasonable person to believe what you ascribed to me.  This is both dishonest and transparent.  But, the fact remains that even in your attempt to attribute outrageous positions to me, you are yet wrong.

Before we discuss the history of mankind's use of animals in scientific inquiry, I would like to point out that, while more people can conceivably be saved by making sticky footprints in the bottom of tubs mandatory, than could be saved by curing leukemia, that is no excuse for failing to conduct the research that can cure the diseases that ail real people.  People are not statistics, they are people.  Each and every one of them, they are our cousins,  our mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters.  We owe it to them to try and lift their burdens from them, and if it requires animal experimentation in order to avoid more human death, then so be it.

Louis Pasteur used animals in his research on germs, insulin has been produced to save the lives of countless diabetics, and polio is nothing but a distant memory because of animal research.  The fact that you would minimize the scientific and human impact of these advances while trumpeting the benefits of modern sanitation demonstrates the fact that you simply do not understand how the facts that state the case for modern sanitation were established.

We have the power to search for cures to human disease, and we, in the United States of America, are uniquely positioned to conduct great amounts of this research, research which people in many parts of the globe, such as Central Africa, are incapable due to economic constraints.  I would expect, that, were the tables turned, and more than one million people per year perished as a result of HIV/AIDS, you would not be so cavalier in your attitudes.  Suffering people, dying people, people who must watch their friends and family die from potentially curable diseases will find no solace in your counter proposal that we eat more grains and avoid heart disease.  They are suffering now, they are dying now, and more people will fall ill with HIV/AIDS, more people will be infected, every single day, until we find a cure, real people, with real hopes, and real dreams, and real friends, will die.

If there is anything that is wrong, it is to let innocent people die of AIDS, multiple sclerosis, leukemia, Parkinson's disease complications, and many other conditions that we can conceivably cure.
From Mike Schmidt on 05/18/09 at 10:20 pm

Edit, in paragraph three, "If more than one million people in North America perished per year as a result of HIV/AIDS."
From Amy Kerwin on 05/19/09 at 8:11 am

The Case for Nonhuman Primate Retirement

Thank you for covering the important and controversial topic of primate research. Since I am leading the effort in raising funds to construct an enriching indoor/outdoor primate sanctuary in southern Wisconsin, I would like to respond to the article’s implication that monkeys wouldn’t necessarily be afforded a better quality of life if they were retired from a laboratory into a sanctuary setting.

Nonhuman primate retirement is not a new concept. Thanks to the Chimpanzee, Health, Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection Act (CHIMP Act), there is federal funding available for chimpanzees to retire from research facilities into more naturalistic environments at primate sanctuaries around the country.  The sanctuaries still have to do plenty of fund raising to cover the lifetime care of the chimpanzees, but the federal funding is at least the ethical compromise of giving back to the primates after their use in research.

 

Old and New World monkeys are not covered by the Act and so there is no federal funding available for them, thus allowing the monkeys to continually be overlooked when it comes to funding their retirement.  Both chimpanzees and monkeys are intelligent primates whose continued use is argued by the research industry because of their similarity to humans. We have a disparate situation where approximately 1,200 laboratory chimpanzees have the chance to get the retirement they deserve while the nearly 69,000 monkeys housed in research facilities across the country do not.

 

I was contacted by five different researchers last year from throughout the country asking for advice on how to retire their primates, so I know there are researchers out there who are ready and willing. If they do find a way to work through the bureaucracy of retiring monkeys, they still run the risk of getting rejected by sanctuary directors.  And when the monkeys are lucky enough to be retired from a laboratory, they are typically sent with their partners to the sanctuary so that their social structure remains intact. If they are singly-housed, the sanctuary attempts rehabilitate them and slowly socialize them into various partnerships or group-housing situations.

 

We have been reviewing articles since I started Primates Incorporated in 2004 on how to create an optimal local indoor/outdoor primate sanctuary that will rise well above the minimum housing requirements for monkeys in laboratories and most zoos. The plans are in place, we just need funding. The lack of monetary support from the local research community, along with their belittlement of our cause whenever they are asked to comment in an article, is not helping in our fund-raising efforts.

 

In order to secure funding for primate retirement, as a society we need to do the following: contact our representatives and ask them to amend the CHIMP Act to include all research primates, establish more community-sustainable primate sanctuaries around the country, and establish a private nonhuman primate retirement foundation.  -Any philanthropists out there?

 

 

 

 
From Rick Bogle on 05/21/09 at 3:47 pm

And which part, Mike, is the strawman? The only thing I ascribed to you, and I even qualified it, was that you seem to feel "that animal research has been responsible for our improved health."

But, as I noted, it really hasn't contributed very much, but I won't say nothing, there must be an example out there that proves the rule. (The Nobel Prize was awarded for the breakthrough in growing polio virus in vitro, btw. just trivia.)

You take issue with Lueder's article on the basis that the experiments on the monkeys are beneficial to us; and though they are financially beneficial to the university and the vivisectors, they aren't beneficial to the general public.

You argue that: "People are not statistics, they are people.  Each and every one of them, they are our cousins,  our mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters."

I agree, but why draw the line at "people?" In fact, though you are my cousin, so is every living thing on the planet, in all liklihood. So why people? Why not apes? or primates? or mammals? or vertebrates? or animals? how like us do they need to be before we have a moral obligation to respect their basic rights?

The problem here is that we have a long history of making claims about various others to justify our harm to them -- claims that have focused on "our" special charateristics. But over time, particualarly in the past century, science has whittled away at those differences through experimentation and observation. In fact, researchers belive that monkey brains and human brains and our resulting perceptions of the world around us -- even notions of things like fairness -- are very similar. At some point, if you think people deserve to be treated with respect because of our shared responses to the world around us, and I do, then, we have to treat those with similar emotions and thoughts in a similar manner. Not doing so is little different from old fashioned racial bigotry.

Let be add here, that no matter how one might feel about animal research or the treatment of animals, you should be alarmed when public employees, like Kemnitz and Capuano lie and mislead the public. For the sake of space, I'll mention only Capuano's big lie. He said: "I took an oath to protect animals." But this is like Mengele saying that he took the Hippocratic Oath, so he must not be hurting children.

Use PubMed (until they succeed in getting it hidden from the public). Enter: Capuano SV 3rd and see just how he protects animals. if you think he's lying about protecting animals based on his papers detailing the was he made them fatally ill, maybe you will begin to wonder whether the claims that the cure for [you name it] is just around the corner.
From Mike Schmidt on 05/22/09 at 9:43 am
http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=25893

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