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The animalrights group wants the military to stop "disturbing" tests meant to recreate symptoms of the mysterious "Havana syndrome" afflicting diplomats and other American and Canadian personnel.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals on Monday implored the U.S. military to reinstate a ban on the intentional wounding of animals in experiments and to stop radiation testing in an attempt to determine the cause of the mystery ailment popularly known as "Havana syndrome" that has afflicted U.S. government officials posted at diplomatic facilities in Washington, D.C. and several foreign countries.
In a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, PETA science policy adviser Maggie Wiśniewska calls radio frequency wave testing in experiments trying to induce Havana syndrome on animals "not only cruel and wasteful but also, frankly, futile."
Wiśniewska urged the Pentagon "to renew the ban on weapons-wounding tests on dogs, cats, marine animals, and nonhuman primates and to no longer permit the wounding of any animals with weapons for medical research, development, testing, or evaluation."
This prohibition would apply to "an apparent military plan to expose monkeys to pulsed microwave radiation in a misguided attempt to determine human brain effects associated with an acquired neurosensory syndrome commonly referred to as 'Havana syndrome' and the ongoing experiment funded by the U.S. Army at Wayne State University that involves irradiating ferrets with a radio frequency directed weapon in an irrelevant attempt to study the cognitive, behavioral, vestibular, and cochlear health effects of Havana syndrome in humans."
In 1983, PETA exposed and fought to shut down a Pentagon "wound lab" where animals including dogs and goats were shot for medical training and experimentation. In 2005, U.S. Army Regulation 40-33 banned the use of dogs, cats, marine animals, and nonhuman primates in experiments "conducted for the development of biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons."
However, in 2020 the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) issued Policy 84, which permits the purchase of live animals to inflict wounds upon using a weapon for the purpose of conducting medical research, development, testing, or evaluation."
In March 2022 PETA filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents and images related to USAMRDC-approved wound testing of animals. After initially stating it had at least 2,000 such files, USAMRDC backtracked and claimed that it had only one record relating to animal wound testing and that the responsive record to PETA's FOIA request is "classified... in the
interest of national defense or foreign policy."
PETA argues that the military's decision to use live animals in testing related to Havana syndrome is "counterproductive" due to biological differences between humans and species subjected to the experiments, as well as the widespread availability of non-wounding research methods and the likelihood that radio frequency waves did not cause the mysterious ailment.
The U.S. government has a long history of radiation experiments not only on animals but also on human beings. Scores of institutions, including some of North America's most prominent universities, laboratories, and hospitals hosted government and military experimentation on both volunteers and unwitting test subjects in the MK-ULTRA mind control experiments and other highly unethical and sometimes deadly programs.
People suffering from Havana syndrome—so named because it was first identified by U.S. and Canadian diplomats and embassy staff in the Cuban capital—experienced what The Lancetdescribed as "an abrupt onset of unusual clinical symptoms."
"Affected individuals described hearing a sudden loud noise that was perceived to have directional features, and that was accompanied by pain in one or both ears or, in some cases, pressure or vibrations felt in their head," the British medical publication explained. "Some of the diplomats also reported tinnitus, visual problems, vertigo, and cognitive difficulties."
A global U.S. intelligence probe concluded earlier this month that it is "highly unlikely" that a foreign adversary is behind the illness, and that the symptoms reported by hundreds of U.S. personnel "were probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors."
"As long as non-human primates are used in scientific experiments, we are morally obligated to provide them with sufficient social conditions that ensure their emotional wellbeing," one researcher argued.
Hundreds of scientists, doctors, and academics from around the world—including renowned primatologist Jane Goodall—on Wednesday urged the U.S. National Institutes of Health to review and ultimately end funding for "cruel experiments" on non-human primates at Harvard University.
In a letter led by Harvard Law School's Animal Law & Policy Clinic and the Wild Minds Lab at the University of St. Andrews School of Psychology and Neuroscience in the United Kingdom, 380 signatories urge senior National Institutes of Health officials to "review the protocols and justifications" related to the "funding of unethical experiments on macaque monkeys and other non-human primates taking place at Harvard Medical School."
\u201cBreaking: More than 380 scientists, including Jane Goodall, Ian Redmond and Richard Wrangham, join the Animal Law & Policy Clinic @Harvard_Law and the Wild Minds Lab @univofstandrews in calling on @NIH to stop funding cruel monkey experiments @harvardmed.\n\nhttps://t.co/i89Y1aA4ki\u201d— Harvard Animal Law (@Harvard Animal Law) 1675873266
As the letter details:
An NIH-funded Harvard Medical School lab run by neurobiologist Dr. Margaret S. Livingstone has used infant macaque monkeys to study visual recognition by depriving them of the ability to see faces, either by sewing their eyes shut or by requiring staff to wear welders’ masks around them. In some cases, the lab implants electrode arrays into the monkeys' brains.
By design, these experiments require maternal deprivation—a fact that drew the ire of scientists last fall, when Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published an Inaugural Article by Dr. Livingstone entitled Triggers for Mother Love. The article describes the lab's practice of taking infant macaques from their mothers shortly after birth and attempting to appease the mothers' distress by giving them plush toys as "surrogate infants."
"As a primatologist with decades of experience in the field, I can say with complete confidence that we know that infant primates and their mothers suffer greatly when they are separated. We also know that depriving infants of the ability to see faces will have adverse impacts on their brain and eye development," Richard Wrangham, an anthropologist and primatologist at Harvard, said in a statement.
"Taking infant monkeys from their mothers to use in invasive brain experiments could only be justified by expectations of extraordinarily important benefits for the monkeys themselves, or for humans," he added. "Because that high ethical bar has not been met, I see no legitimate need for any such research."
"These studies fail on both scientific and ethical grounds."
Catherine Hobaiter, the principal investigator at Wild Minds Lab, asserted that "these studies fail on both scientific and ethical grounds."
"The doublethink argument that maternally separated individuals represent appropriate models for conditions such as anxiety, while arguing these methods do not cause significant distress, is fundamentally flawed," she said. "Our fundamental role as scientists is to update, refine, and redefine our understanding of the world around us. Doing so must include not only our theoretical positions, but our ethical responsibility to the animals we have given no choice in becoming our subjects of study."
Gal Badihi, a graduate research student at Wild Minds Lab, argued that "as long as non-human primates are used in scientific experiments, we are morally obligated to provide them with sufficient social conditions that ensure their emotional wellbeing."
"This is not only an ethical requirement," Badihi added, "but essential for research validity and integrity."