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animal cruelty
Ethics Group Asks SEC to Probe Musk Claims About 'Gruesome' Neuralink Monkey Trials
"It seems obvious to everyone but Elon Musk that Neuralink's device is unsafe," said one critic. "Now he is deliberately misleading investors and the public by outright lying about the company's monkey experiments."
Sep 21, 2023
After obtaining records showing a dozen monkeys were euthanized in "gruesome" trials, a national physicians group on Wednesday asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate claims made by Elon Musk, owner of the biotech firm Neuralink, about the company's experimental brain implants.
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) requested an SEC probe into possible securities fraud committed by Musk when he claimed that "no monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant" during testing of the company's implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCI), and that the animals who died were all already terminally ill when chosen for experiments.
However, records obtained by PCRM and WIRED revealed that 12 previously healthy Rhesus macaques were euthanized by Neuralink due to problems with the company's implant. Health records offer no evidence that the 12 monkeys were terminally ill, as Musk claimed. Rhesus macaques commonly live around 20 years in captivity, with some reaching the age of 40. The average age of the 12 monkeys who died during Neuralink experiments was 7.25 years.
"It seems obvious to everyone but Elon Musk that Neuralink's device is unsafe and dangerous," PCRM research and advocacy director Ryan Merkley said in a statement. "Now he is deliberately misleading investors and the public by outright lying about the company's monkey experiments."
Veterinary records paint what WIREDcalled a "gruesome portrayal" of suffering endured by monkeys during Neuralink trials.
PCRM recounted the story of "Animal 15," a 6-year-old female Rhesus macaque assigned to Neuralink trials at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) at the University of California, Davis in September 2017. The following spring, she began "task training," during which the animal is confined in a restraint device. She did not take well to the training and refused to eat. Then she and another monkey escaped from their cages.
On December 17, 2018, "Neuralink staff drilled holes into Animal 15's skull, removed part of her skull and skin to expose her brain, and implanted two electrodes, one in each hemisphere of her brain. The surgery lasted five hours."
According to research records, Animal 15 developed a host of medical problems, including excessive itching, bloody discharge, and loss of balance. She was repeatedly observed pulling on the port connector in her skull and was seen pressing her head against the floor, a possible sign of pain or neurological impairment.
On Christmas 2018, Animal 15 was seen "pulling and picking at the incision sites." Both of her eyes were swollen half-shut. By March, large quantities of discharge were observed coming from Animal 15's head; lab tests showed multiple bacterial infections on her implants. Her health declined until she was euthanized on March 21, 2019.
"A necropsy found that the Neuralink implants left parts of Animal 15's brain 'focally tattered,' that 'remnant electrode threads' were found in her brain, and there were indications of hemorrhaging," PCRM said.
In the case of "Animal 22," a monkey euthanized in March 2020, a necropsy report states that "the failure of this implant can be considered purely mechanical and not exacerbated by infection," an apparently direct contradiction of Musk's claim that no animals died from Neuralink implants.
A former Neuralink employee, who did not want to be named for fear of retaliation, told WIRED that Musk's claim is "ridiculous" and "straight fabrication."
A doctoral candidate currently researching at CNPRC—who also requested anonymity for similar reasons—told the outlet that "these are pretty young monkeys."
"It's hard to imagine these monkeys, who were not adults, were terminal for some reason," the researcher added.
As WIRED reported Wednesday:
If the SEC does investigate Musk's comments, it would mark at least the third federal probe linked to Neuralink's animal testing. In December 2022, Reutersreported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General had launched a probe into Neuralink's treatment of some animal test subjects. In February 2023, the U.S. Department of Transportation opened an investigation into Neuralink over allegations of unsafe transport of antibiotic-resistant pathogens.
These investigations followed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration initially rejecting Neuralink's application, in early 2022, for approval to conduct in-human clinical trials. According toReuters, the agency's major concerns involved the device's lithium battery, as well as the possibility that the implant's wires might migrate to other parts of the brain.
Despite this, the FDA in May gave Neuralink the green light to begin human trials. On Wednesday, the company announced it would start recruiting adults with quadriplegia due to vertical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease—for trials.
Called the PRIME study, the trials will test Neuralink's ability to help people with paralysis control devices. The company said Wednesday that it aims to "grant people the ability to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone."
In 2018, the SEC charged Musk with securities fraud for a series of false and misleading posts on Twitter—which he later bought and rebranded as X—about potentially taking his electric car company Tesla private. In a settlement, Musk agreed to resign as Tesla's chairman and pay a $20 million penalty. The company was also hit with a $20 million fine.
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Idaho's "Ag-Gag" Law Latest to Criminalize Defenders of Animals
Despite losses in other states, Idaho lawmakers pushing hard to paint activists as "terrorists"
Feb 13, 2014
Though similar efforts in other states have failed, a bill moving swiftly through the Idaho legislature this week is trying to criminalize the activities of animal rights advocates who expose the mistreatment of farm animals and livestock by documenting abuse by their human handlers.
Known broadly as 'Ag-Gag' legislation, the specific bill in Idaho is titled SB 1337 and is pitched by its backers--which include large agribusiness interests in the dairy and meat industry--as an "agricultural security measure" defending farmers, dairies, and processing plant owners against "ag terrorists," their unkind moniker for those who might secretly videotape abuse of animals without express permission.
"Consumers want better treatment of animals used for food not for the agriculture industry to cover up illegal acts and penalize those who try to expose cruelty." --Matthew Strugar, PETA
But opponents of animal cruelty say laws like the one in Idaho not only endanger animal welfare, but are an assault on the public's right to know about the treatment these animals receive in certain facilities when operators think no one is watching.
"Consumers want better treatment of animals used for food not for the agriculture industry to cover up illegal acts and penalize those who try to expose cruelty," said Matthew Strugar, senior litigation counsel for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), in an email sent to Common Dreams.
SB 1337, sponsored by State Senator Sen. Jim Patrick (R-Twins Falls), would ban unauthorized video recordings on agricultural facilities and treat those found engaging in such activities as criminals, with punishments of up to one year in prison and fines up to $5,000.
On Tuesday of this week, the bill was voted out of committee and is now headed to the full Senate for a vote.
As local journalist Kimberlee Kruesi reported for the Twin Falls Times-News:
The bill is being endorsed by Idaho's $2.5 billion dairy industry just two years after an animal rights group released undercover footage of abuse at Dry Creek Dairy southwest of Murtaugh, owned by large-scale dairy owner Luis Bettencourt.
The video was obtained after an investigator - who was employed by Los Angeles-based Mercy for Animals - began working on the Bettencourt dairy in July, 2012. Within three weeks of working on the facility, he recorded employees using a tractor to drag a cow on slippery concrete by a chain wrapped around its neck, employees punching and stomping on milk cows and one employee beating a cow with a pink cane.
Though animals rights groups have helped defeat similar laws in other states, the tensions in Idaho are strong. Backers of the bill have repeatedly vilified those with animal rights concerns while couching the law as one that defends the rights of private property owners.
"The cruelty [documented at the Bettencourt Dairies] drew nationwide attention and condemnation, but instead of taking meaningful steps to improve animal welfare, the state's dairy industry is simply trying to silence its critics." --Matthew Dominguez, Humane Society
According to the Associated Press, during Tuesday's committee hearing, Sen. Patrick described those who film animal abuse in dairies or slaughterhouses as "comparable to marauding invaders centuries ago who swarmed into foreign territory and destroyed crops to starve foes into submission."
"This is clear back in the sixth century B.C.," Patrick said. "This is the way you combat your enemies."
And another supporter of the law, state Sen. Jim Rice (R-Caldwell), said farmers shouldn't have to worry that someone is monitoring the treatment of animals on their property. "Do you have a right to control your own activities on your property or not?" he asked at the hearing. "Throughout our history, the answer has been yes."
But animal rights activists say these arguments are both absurd and a distraction from the real issue: preventing cruelty to animals and improving the public perception of all farmers by creating a culture of transparency, not secrecy, when it comes to farming and food processing operations.
"If the Idaho state legislature passes this bill and it becomes law, people all over the country will think Idaho's agriculture sector has a lot to hide," said PETA's Strugar.
PETA has long used undercover investigators to expose animal cruelty like that found in Bettencourt case.
"It's vital that the public retain the right to document abuse wherever it occurs," Strugar explained to Common Dreams, "because there are no inspections of farms for cruelty violations and workers who report abuse are often ignored, evidence from undercover investigations is crucial in prosecuting criminal acts."
The Humane Society of the United States, which has been active in opposing the Idaho law, released this television ad to help make its case to the public:
Idaho Ag-Gag Commercialwww.youtube.com
Matthew Dominguez, who works on farm policy for the Humane Society and has been actively lobbying against the bill, says the argument about private property rights is a red herring pushed by agribusiness to confuse the issue.
"The real motivation behind these dangerous ag-gag bills," Dominguez told Common Dreams, is "to prevent the public from learning about the horrors occurring on factory farms."
He continued: "The cruelty [documented at the Bettencourt Dairies] drew nationwide attention and condemnation, but instead of taking meaningful steps to improve animal welfare, the state's dairy industry is simply trying to silence its critics."
Both Strugar and Dominguez agree that though the AG-Gag bill now before Idaho's full senate is designed to insulate the dairy and agriculture industries from outside critics, what its really doing is making consumers in the state and across the country less trusting of the people who are responsible for caring for the many millions of animals used for food production each year.
"This dangerous effort by Idaho's dairy industry is going to hurt the public's trust in all of Idaho agriculture," said Dominguez. "Other farmers should resent that the dairy industry for giving the impression that all of the state's food producers have something to hide.
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Change Is Coming: Factory Farms' Days May Be Numbered
Animal welfare advocates, rejoice
Nov 28, 2012
In one of history's most stunning victories for humane farming, Australia's largest supermarket chain, Coles, will as of January 1 stop selling company branded pork and eggs from animals kept in factory farms. As an immediate result, 34,000 mother pigs will no longer be kept in stalls for long periods of their lives, and 350,000 hens will be freed from cages.
Not to be outdone, the nation's other dominant supermarket chain, Woolworths, has already begun phasing out factory farmed animal products. In fact all of Woolworth's house brand eggs are now cage-free, and by mid-2013 all of their pork will come from farmers who operate stall-free farms.
Coles and Woolworths together account for a dominant 80 percent of all supermarket sales in Australia.
The move to open up the cages was fueled by "consumer sentiment," and it has been synchronous with a major campaign against factory farming of animals led by Animals Australia. The campaign features a TV ad, titled "When Pigs Fly," in which an adorable piglet tells the story of animals sentenced to life in cramped cages, and then flies to freedom.
Meanwhile, in the United States, egg factory farms cram more than 90 percent of the country's 280 million egg-laying hens into barren cages so small the birds can't even spread their wings. Each bird spends her entire life given less space than a sheet of paper. And in a reality that does not please fans of Wilber or Babe, between 60 to 70 percent of the more than five million breeding pigs in the United States are kept in crates too small for them to so much as turn around.
There are laws against cruelty to animals in the United States, but most states specifically exempt animals destined for human consumption. The result is that the animal agriculture industry routinely does things to animals that, if you did them to a dog or a cat, would get you put in jail.
Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary, explains: "Most of the anti-cruelty laws exempt farm animals as long as the practices are considered to be normal by the agriculture industry. What has happened is that bad has become normal, and no matter how cruel it is, normal is legal."
But here, too, change is coming. Undercover investigations have led to a $497 million judgment against the now defunct Hallmark Meat Packing company, and to the recent temporary shutdown of Central Valley Meat Company over what federal investigators termed "egregious, inhumane handling and treatment of livestock." California and Michigan have passed laws that will phase in a ban on battery cages for hens, and nine U.S. states have joined the entire European Union in heading towards a ban on confining pigs in gestation crates.
Worried that consumers are starting to find out the truth about treatment of modern farm animals and will demand further changes, industry leaders are pushing for "ag gag" laws that would hide factory farming and slaughterhouse abuses from public scrutiny. Recently passed laws in Iowa and Utah threaten jail time for anyone working undercover and taking pictures or video of animals in factory farms without permission.
What don't they want us to know? What are they trying to hide? What would happen if the veil was lifted and we saw the level of cruelty that has become the norm in U.S. industrial meat production?
A poll conducted by Lake Research partners found that 94 percent of Americans agree that animals raised for food on farms deserve to be free from abuse and cruelty, and that 71 percent of Americans support undercover investigative efforts by animal welfare organizations to expose animal abuse on industrial farms.
Most farmers don't try to be cruel to animals, but they do worry about how to cut costs. And so long as consumers are kept in the dark about the real source of their food, farm owners have no economic incentive to do more than the minimum necessary to appease regulatory authorities.
Want to take action? Join the Food Revolution Network, an online community dedicated to healthy, sustainable, humane and delicious food for all.
Or join the Humane Society's campaign for farm animal protection, or Farm Sanctuary's work for animal welfare legislation. Or if you want to save 100 animals per year, you can sign up for PETA's free veg starter kit.
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