PETA Files USDA Complaint Against Emory's Yerkes Primate Center

ATLANTA, GA — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate repeated violations of federal animal welfare guidelines at Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center that left at least one monkey dead, according to federal documents obtained by PETA and reviewed by Patch.

PETA filed an official complaint with the USDA Friday requesting "swift action" from the agency against Emory "for its failure to meet the standard of care for monkeys held in its facilities," the complaint reads. Alka Chandna, PETA's vice president of laboratory investigations cases, said not only are monkeys being mistreated at Yerkes, but these actions are being funded in part by taxpayer dollars.

Emory received more than $507 million in taxpayer-funded grants from the National Institutes of Health in 2020 alone, according to the NIH award database, with $118.6 million allocated for research centers, including Yerkes.

"For people who may think it's 'just monkeys,' think about the fact that hundreds of millions of your tax dollars are going to fund this institution," Chandna said. "Part of the reason these regulations and guidelines exist is because it's about protecting taxpayer funding."

The USDA inspects all non-federal animal laboratories, but all labs are still required to self-report any actions that violate animal welfare guidelines. According to letters between Emory and the National Institutes of Health's Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare and obtained by PETA, Emory self-reported 37 violations between March 2018 and April 2021.

Three of the 37 violations appear to have also violated the federal Animal Welfare Act and the associated Animal Welfare Regulations Act, which does not protect animals like mice or rats, but does protect monkeys like the ones at Yerkes.

OLAW officials responded to each of the reported violations and acknowledged when Emory personnel completed corrective measures to rectify the violations.

Case files show the following violations could have breached the AWA and AWRA:

• Violation: A female rhesus macaque monkey underwent an emergency C-section surgery in February 2018, and a surgical sponge was left inside her body for four months before Yerkes staff discovered it, according to an Aug. 29, 2019 letter.
  • Corrective action: "Corrective actions consisted of performing a second surgery to remove the sponge. The monkey recovered uneventfully and was returned to its social group. To prevent a recurrence, radiopaque sponges will continue to be used, sponge count bags will be used, pre- and post-operative sponge counts will be conducted, a datamatrix-coded surgical sponge tracking system will be implemented, and a root cause analysis is currently being conducted."
• Violation: In a Nov. 13, 2019 letter, Emory reported that the same kidney biopsy needle was used to perform kidney biopsies on two separate nonhuman primates without properly sterilizing the needle between uses.
  • Corrective action: "Corrective actions consisted of counseling the investigator responsible on using aseptic technique. All laboratory staff working with primates was retrained on using aseptic technique and on the relevant standard operating procedures."
• Violation: A rhesus macaque monkey died after having an anaphylactic response to an injectable agent in June 2019. Normally this would not be a reportable case, but the monkey died due to a lack of communication among veterinarians about the monkey's sensitivity to similar injectable agents, according to the February 2020 letters.
• Corrective action: "The corrective actions to prevent recurrence per the final report includes: the veterinarian staff will communicate all previous anaphylactic responses with each infusion to appropriate personnel."

A spokesperson for Yerkes sent the following statement via email to Patch Friday, which did not directly deny or confirm the complaint:

"Dedicated to discovering causes, prevention, treatments and cures, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University is fighting diseases from Alzheimer’s to Zika and improving human and animal health worldwide. Critical to the center’s infectious disease, neuroscience, genomics and transplant medicine research is our animal colony, which enables us to provide unique insights not available with other scientific models.

"Yerkes grounds our research in scientific integrity, expert knowledge, respect for colleagues, commitment to diversity, open exchange of ideas and compassionate, quality animal care. The center follows regulations and guidelines from the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Emory’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, self-reports concerns to the appropriate authorities and regularly reviews our animal care standards, practices and procedures, and our personnel training programs to ensure we provide the highest quality care for the animals involved in Emory’s research programs. Since 1984, Yerkes has maintained the gold standard of 'full accreditation' from AAALAC International, a private, nonprofit organization that promotes the humane treatment of animals in science through voluntary accreditation and assessment programs."

Robert Gibbens, acting associate deputy administrator for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, confirmed receipt of the complaint and said the department would "look into it" in an email to PETA Friday morning.

Patch is waiting for a response from the USDA.

A 'long track record' of animal welfare violations

It's not the first time the USDA has investigated — or fined — Emory for violating the Animal Welfare Act.

Some of Emory's fines for AWA violations at Yerkes include $6,000 in 1996, $10,000 in 1998, $1,375 in 2005 and $15,000 in 2007, including an incident in which the wrong monkey was euthanized because the animal's ID code was "mistakenly entered to the necropsy schedule," and another where personnel used an "inappropriate restraint" — duct tape — on multiple monkeys, according to USDA inspection reports.

"The negligence that led to the death of that macaque is just inexcusable," said Betty Goldentyer of the USDA in a 2007 email, of the monkey's death by euthanasia.

It's also not the first time PETA has challenged Yerkes's use of monkeys in its animal laboratories.

Because Emory/Yerkes is a private institution, the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to it — so one of the few ways to gain access to private documents like necropsy and veterinarian reports is to bring forward a lawsuit, Chandna said.

In 2017, Yerkes sent in an application to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to use an endangered species of monkeys, called sooty mangabeys, in "limited invasive sampling, including anesthetizing, collecting blood, skin and bone marrow tissue samples, and MRI scanning usually, but not always, during routine veterinary examinations for the purpose of scientific research."

PETA and other animal rights organizations filed a lawsuit, and Yerkes had to hand over more than 100 necropsy reports for sooty mangabeys — 78 of them were found dead or had to be euthanized at Yerkes between 2001-05, and another 84 died or had to be euthanized between 2011-15. At least two died of "self-mutilation" and others died of emaciation, records show.

"They were just so sick that they weren't eating and they died," Chandna said. "There were a lot of animals that had bite wounds ... you just get a sense of what a hell these animals are living and how much circumstance where it seems like any idea around animal welfare has gone out the window."

While the USDA already confirmed it would look into PETA's complaint against Emory, Chandna said she hopes it goes a step further and files an administrative lawsuit, which could result in more serious penalties such as suspension of operations or seizing of animals.

"Emory has a long track record of violating the Animal Welfare Act ... [the USDA] can slap another fine here and that would be great, but what we'd really like them to do, and what they can do, is actually bring an administrative lawsuit against Emory," Chandna said. "That is much more serious, and obviously causes a lot more grief to the institution."

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