For Rapid Launch:
December 8, 2023
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Houston – PETA is urging the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) at this time to droop all monkey imports after the company revealed in an internet seminar this week that from 2021 to 2023, there was a surprising improve in imported shipments of monkeys with tuberculosis (TB), which is transmissible to people. Between 2010 and 2020, there have been no confirmed instances.
In January 2023, a cargo of macaques from Southeast Asia contained the biggest proportion of monkeys contaminated with TB within the historical past of importation into the U.S. The 26 contaminated long-tailed macaques on this cargo harbored a extremely infectious TB pressure that has by no means been seen in animals within the U.S.
Paperwork obtained by PETA present that the 26 contaminated monkeys had been probably imported by worldwide monkey supplier and experimenter Charles River Laboratories as a part of a cargo of 540 monkeys imported from Vietnam and delivered to Houston. In a separate letter, PETA is urgent Charles River CEO James Foster to verify whether or not the corporate is accountable for the cargo.
PETA lately uncovered Charles River’s secretive plans to construct a monkey-breeding facility and warehouse on ecologically delicate land in Brazoria County, Texas, that might be populated with monkeys Charles River is importing from Asia and Mauritius. TB, together with this new pressure that was described within the January 2023 cargo, has been proven to contaminate cows in Asia, elevating the specter of spillover in Texas.
“Importing 1000’s of monkeys is enjoying with hearth and severely will increase the danger of the unfold of ailments transmissible to people,” says PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “PETA is asking on the CDC to droop all monkey imports instantly.”
A monkey confined to a delivery crate. Credit score: PETA
Earlier this 12 months, PETA revealed that monkeys imported into the U.S. from Mauritius induced a TB outbreak at a Michigan laboratory. Monkeys from Cambodia have additionally arrived contaminated with a bacterium so lethal that the U.S. classifies it as a bioterrorism agent.
Charles River is at present below civil and prison investigation by the U.S. Division of Justice for violations of the Endangered Species and Lacey acts. The corporate additionally lately acknowledged that it’s below investigation by the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Change Fee associated to its sourcing of monkeys from Asia. Greater than 1,000 long-tailed macaques are nonetheless being confined in limbo at Charles River’s facility in Houston after the corporate allegedly imported them illegally from Cambodia.
For extra info on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please go to PETA.org, take heed to The PETA Podcast, or observe the group on X (previously Twitter), Fb, or Instagram.