Primate center slated to close - Activists cite negative press
By Paula J.
Owen, Telegram & Gazette, April 24, 2013
Local animal rights advocates and protesters of the facility say they
are thrilled with Harvard Medical School’s announcement Tuesday that it
will wind down operations at the New England Primate Research Center
over the next few years and largely shut it down by 2015.
But they are also concerned about what will happen to the more than
2,000 primates at the facility.
In a news release, the medical school said the decision not to seek
renewal of a five-year federal grant and to end the “groundbreaking
research” into human diseases that has been done at the center the past
50 years was partly based on the difficult climate for obtaining
external funding for such research.
The center, it said, is working with the National Institutes of Health
on a transition plan, and the primates will either be moved to other
sites, including the other national primate research centers, or be
managed at the Southboro facility.
“Among the plan’s priorities is a staffing strategy that will maintain a
high level of care for the animals, ensuring that primates will not be
adversely affected by the transition,” the release said.
David Cameron, director of science communications at Harvard Medical
School, said he could not comment on whether the decision had anything
to do with ongoing pressure by groups to shut down the facility,
including protests after four monkeys died between June 2010 and
February 2012 because of inadequate care.
“Recent funding pressures have added uncertainty to this already
challenging fiscal context,” the release said. “As Harvard Medical
School leadership evaluated the long-term need to use its resources in
the most effective manner across all of its missions, they came to the
conclusion that winding down the operations of the (center) was more
beneficial to the school than investing further resources in maintaining
and renewing the (center’s) grant.”
But animal rights advocates say they aren’t buying it.
Protester Jamie R. Cordack, a park ranger from East Brookfield who has
participated in protests of the facility for years as a member of the
Ohio-based Stop Animal Exploitation Now, said she believes the school
was cowed by the negative publicity.
She said she and others will continue to pressure the school to have
some of the primates go to sanctuaries.
“The worst-newsncase scenario is that none of those animals will go to a
sanctuary,” Ms. Cordack said. But at least in the future no more animals
will go to Southboro. “There are eight (primate research centers in the
U.S.) Now this means there will only be seven.”
Michael A. Budkie, executive director of her group, hailed Harvard’s
decision and called for the retirement of the primates.
The deaths of the primates and ongoing controversy over their care at
the facility, including an investigation by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture for violations of the Animal Welfare Act, led to the
facility’s closure, Mr. Budkie alleged.
“Last year there were two dozen negative news stories about Harvard due
to deaths at the primate center in the Washington Post, Bloomberg,
Boston Globe and other publications,” Mr. Budkie said. “That level of
negative media attention and last year’s resignation of the center’s
director — with all of that going on they had to do something to get out
from under the scandal. The only thing left to do was to close the
primate center down. They decided their reputation was more important
than the primate center.”
He said the group plans to contact Harvard to explore the possibility of
placing at least some of the primates in sanctuaries.
“These primates have suffered enough,” he said. “They deserve a chance
to have a new life in another environment where their needs will be put
first.”
Steven W. Baer of Shrewsbury, a civil engineer working for the state,
has protested the facility for decades.
“I feel sadness and happiness at the same time,” Mr. Baer said. “It is
difficult for those who don’t make it, but we can save those in the
pipeline. I wonder what took so long for it to happen and how Harvard’s
president would allow this kind of thing to happen.”
Drew R. Wilson, president of VegWorcester, an animal rights group, said
he was thrilled to hear the news that there will be one less primate
facility in the U.S.
“It is a barbaric process banned in many countries,” the WPI graduate
said. “I imagine all animal lovers throughout Massachusetts are happy to
hear about it.”
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