Animal Advocacy Group Files Federal Complaint Against Harvard Study

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Animal advocacy group Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research & Experimentation (CAARE) has filed a federal complaint against a Harvard University researcher for what they call “invasive brain experiments” on infant monkeys.

CAARE filed the complaint on Wednesday, May 17 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the National Institutes of Health Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW).

In the complaint, CAARE said they believe the university failed to comply with the Animal Welfare Act and other regulations in approving and carrying out a series of experiments on young monkeys to study how the brain recognizes faces.

CAARE asked the USDA and NIH to investigate Harvard neuroscientist Margaret S. Livingston’s experiments, which included sewing the eyelids of baby monkeys closed, according to the complaint.

In 2016 Livingstone “used the same reversible eye closure techniques as Hubel and Wiesel on two infant monkeys. Under supervision and scrutiny of federal and institutional oversight, the lids were fused under anesthesia, and powerful analgesics and local anesthetics were used to prevent pain post procedure. The lids were re-opened after a year,” according to her website.

CAARE called the tactics “invasive visual deprivation” and said the young monkeys are also “routinely subjected to invasive surgeries, in which head posts, eye coils, and intracranial electrode arrays are implanted in their skulls” while the monkeys are restrained in chairs, helmets, or chin straps.

“All of these events impose considerable suffering and distress for the monkeys,” CAARE wrote in the complaint.

CAARE president Barbara Stagno called the experiments “invasive and distressing” in a news release, and said they conflict with various sections of the Animal Welfare Act and other related policies under USDA and NIH.

“These laws and regulations exist because we have a higher standard to adhere to when it comes to using animals. Scientists are obliged to minimize animal use through these policies. The experiments at Harvard simply disregard this essential principle,” Stagno said in the release.

Livingstone issued a personal statement in October of 2022 about concerns over her research experiments, which had reignited an ethical debate over animal testing.

“We have not performed eyelid closures since the two isolated cases in 2016 and have no plans to do so again,” Livingstone wrote in the statement.

Harvard Medical School said in a 2022 statement it was “deeply concerned” about the attacks directed at scientists doing research for the benefit of humanity, and defended Livingstone’s research.