August 28, 2000
(Matt Speaks Out)

I have worked at the Oregon National Primate Research Center as an animal technician for more than two years, and what I saw broke my heart every day. I witnessed baby monkeys distressed and diseased, living in their own filth and adult monkeys gone mad, attacking and biting their own bodies. I tried to improve the quality of the monkeys’ lives by working for the psychological well-being program. With only two staff, caring for 1,500 animals was impossible. I witnessed first-hand how the Primate Center operates above the laws of the Animal Welfare Act. I participated in the carelessly conducted experiments that are wasting your tax dollars. Unskilled, poorly trained animal technicians, not scientists, are forced by the management to perform the assembly-line style research at a break neck pace. No time is permitted for accuracy so mistakes are common.

The monkeys at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, mostly rhesus macaques, are highly intelligent, socially complex animals. In the wild these monkeys rely on family love and support, and have the same basic capacity to feel anger, loneliness and depression as we do. At the Center the monkeys’ feelings and needs are not considered in the equation of monkey farming. Babies are prematurely weaned— frequently making them ill—and put in small cages. Distressed and bewildered they cry out for their mothers in vain. Experts within the industry agree that isolation during infancy is directly linked to psychosis and self-mutilation in later life, but most are never paired.

Almost all of the caged monkeys used for research live alone, in cramped and barren 4.3 cubic foot cages. Their days are filled with boredom, broken only with moments of fear when they are being manipulated for a study or having their cages hosed down with them inside.

Hundreds of rhesus macaques are warehoused outdoors, within crude, corrugated metal enclosures for low-cost breeding. These monkeys evolved to live in the dry savannas of India and China. Harsh Portland winter rains leave these monkeys wet, muddy and stressed— open for opportunistic infections like shigella and listeriosis. I witnessed epidemic outbreaks of these painful diseases that left hundreds of monkeys sick and dozens of babies still-born. One such outbreak raged for months unnecessarily because management insisted that four sick animals be put into a corral of healthy animals to make room for monkeys coming in from China.

When it became obvious that our management had no intention to do right by these miserable, sick animals, I made an anonymous complaint to Dr. Isis Johnson-Brown, Oregon’s USDA inspector. Nothing happened as a result and she is here to explain the details.

 USDA inspections happen only once or twice a year. A tidal wave of cleaning would precede the inspector on the highly orchestrated tour. Dr. Johnson-Brown was an exceptional inspector and took her job of documenting violations seriously. She cited the Center when she saw baby monkeys getting soaked during cage cleaning, a clear violation. Almost a month after our correction deadline the new cleaning guideline wasn’t completed let alone implemented.  When she showed up unannounced, my supervisor instructed me to quickly complete the document, backdate it, and post it on the wall; right under the nose of the inspector. To this day, over a year later, those cleaning guidelines are not followed, enforced by management, or included in training new technicians.

The only reason the Center had a psychological well-being program was because of a change in the language of that Animal Welfare Act in 1985. The only thing our program did, by design, was to meet that law on paper. Even so, I put my heart into trying to improve the abnormal behaviors of the research monkeys. The laboratory environment causes monkeys to display depression, aggression and bizarre behavior such as penis-sucking, pacing, circling, rocking, drinking their urine, eating and painting with their feces, abusing their offspring, eye-poking, pulling their hair out, and biting and attacking themselves. I used all the interventions afforded me— toys, feeder devices and bits of wood, to improve the self-abusive behavior. These interventions did not work.

Current literature emphasize social housing. Dr. Steven Kelley, our former Head Veterinarian, said it best in the Fall 1991 issue of Primate News, our internal newsletter. “All our experience, presently being confirmed by the research of Dr. Eaton, tells us that the best we can give the monkeys to enrich their environment is not an artificial branch or a plastic toy, but a friend” Now, almost ten years later, most of the Primate Center’s caged monkeys are still alone.

The scientists rarely ever have contact with the monkeys at the Primate Center. Instead the science is left to the animal technicians, who know nothing about the studies or what is in the needle they are injecting into the animal. The job is low-paying, dirty, physically grueling and dangerous work under intense pressure with poor communication from management—a recipe for a truly dysfunctional and depressing work environment.

Maybe that is why, In 1999, the Oregon National Primate Research Center had over 100 percent turnover. They lose people faster than they can hire them. The Center has a constant influx of new, unskilled employees and a virtually non-existent training program. During my first days, a weekend supervisor told me, “If you want to get trained around here you’re going to have to do it yourself.”

Often the wrong monkeys get shots, have their blood drawn, or end up at the sharp end of a knife in surgery. Animal technicians are often forced to perform procedures they are untrained to do. Many times I witnessed technicians jabbing monkeys with a needle dozens of times, unable to find a vein for a blood sample. One of our veterinarians, Gwen Maginnis admitted, “They’re not thinking about the monkey in front of them, but the next 20 down the line”

Safety is also compromised because lab workers are expected to work fast while handling unpredictable wild animals. Technicians are frequently scratched, bitten or splashed with body fluids, exposing them to deadly diseases such as the Herpes B virus, harmless to monkeys but deadly to humans. This virus killed Beth Griffin, a technician at Yerkes Primate Center.

The evidence presented this morning and the videotape of monkeys you are about to see is just a brief glimpse of what I experienced at Oregon’s Primate Center. The details could fill volumes. I realize now that one or even a group of well-intentioned technicians can not “fix” an industry that has no intention to change. We did try though. After dozens of years of dysfunction and mismanagement in my department, technicians were fed up. A complaint was circulated (in the press packet) and twenty-five of my coworkers stuck their necks out and signed it. I presented the complaint to Dr. David Hess, the head of the Institutional Care and Use Committee before I resigned last June.

As a result, Dr. Stephen Kelley, the head veterinarian in charge of the Division of Animal Resources was forced to resign. His Operations manager, Al Legasse, was also relieved of his position. Unfortunately, only the names have changed. I have kept in touch with friends at the Center and it’s been business as usual—high turn-over, inadequate training, ongoing mistakes in research, areas short staffed, and husbandry blunders.