Stop use Nepalese monkeys in biomedical research

[Guest guest]

Dear AAPN members,

 

The Government of Nepal recently not only legalised biomedical research on

its primates, but also decided to provide monkeys from its national parks,

managed by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.

Monkeys will be delivered to a Nepali NGO (Nepal Natural Society) working

closely together with the Washington Primate Research Center, known for

establishing overseas breeding and research facilities where oversight is

completely impossible and information exceedingly difficult to obtain.

Already people are catching and selling monkeys to middle men for this

purpose at the rate of RS 25,000 (US 300) each.

 

Please help us fight this very unfortunate development by sending an email to

the Department's Director General (see draft below) on the following email

address:

 

dnpwc

 

cc to rlm, plj

 

 

Thanks for your help,

 

Lucia de Vries

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Nepal

www.fospcan.org.np

 

 

 

To Dr. Tirtha Man Maskey

 

Dear Director General,

 

I am extremely concerned about your permission to allow the breeding of

monkeys for biomedical research in Nepal, and to actually provide researchers

with monkeys from National Parks managed by your Department.

 

The primary objectives of the Department are to conserve the country’s major

representative ecosystems, unique natural and cultural heritage, and give

protection to the valuable and endangered wildlife species. Now that you are

supporting the work of the Nepal Natural Society, an NGO cooperating with the

Washington Primate Research Center, these objectives are being violated.

 

Monkeys are considered sacred and an important part of Nepal's heritage for a

number of reasons. Monkeys are highly intelligent animals and maintain

intricate social structures. They have complex emotional lives, caring for

one another and showing love to their babies as we humans do to our children.

Ethically, using monkeys in experiments that inflict mental and physical pain

is unacceptable and unconscionable.

 

Research illustrates that primate experimentation is no longer the “gold

standard” for study design. Past experience has demonstrated that

animal-modeled biomedical research yields results that cannot be safely

applied to humans. In addition, there are now many alternative research

methods (methods not using living animals) that are capable of providing

clinically relevant data.

 

Nepal will not deserve credit for providing monkeys for biomedical research

by maintaining outdated, unreliable, and unethical methods for conducting

studies. We are now living in an era when ethics as well as state-of-the-art

study design are important considerations when doing research. England now

maintains a complete ban on great ape experimentation. Recently, large-scale

public and professional protests in France halted plans for a breeding

facility for experimental animals. India, after realising that its monkeys

were misused for gruesome radiation experiments in the US, banned all primate

exports in 1977. Even today, biomedical research conducted by US institutions

continues to be often cruel and inappropriate.

 

Global trends indicate a strong movement towards the abolition of experiments

on primates. This is one of the reasons why it is increasingly difficult for

American research centers to find sufficient research primates. However, an

increasing number of primates are needed by the US, specially for heavily

funded 'bioterrorism experiments'. The Washington Center tries to find

loopholes in the world's legal animal rights provisions, and in Nepal (one of

the few countries in the world still largely without such legislation) it has

found ideal working ground.

 

I strongly request your Department and the Nepalese government to demonstrate

its commitment to enlightened and ethical research practices by halting

(breeding facilities for) biomedical research on Nepalese monkeys.

 

YOUR NAME