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MONKEY TROUBLE AT OHSU: A national medical ethics group is pressuring regulators to shutter Oregon Health & Science University’s primate research center as a condition for approving OHSU’s purchase of rival Legacy Health. The Beaverton facility, founded in 1962, has a long history of abusing its 5,000 monkeys, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. As part of its campaign, the group is buying time for radio and television ads in the Portland market. In its 30-second TV spot, the group describes infants being torn from their mothers for “fear experiments” and monkeys being scalded to death by a cage-cleaning system. Video shows monkeys pacing and rocking in cages. “If OHSU can’t care for a monkey, how can they care for you?” the ad asks. Michael Metzler, a doctor from The Dalles who is part of the committee, tells WW the primate center is outdated and a waste of money. “When you look at the research that’s being done, very little of it is answering a critical question that can’t be answered in another way,” Metzler says. OHSU is doing experiments just to keep the facility open and collect more government grants, he adds. OHSU says the lab’s work is crucial. “Knowledge gained through biomedical research in relevant animal models is essential to developing new ways to identify, prevent, treat or eradicate debilitating diseases and to improve human and animal health,” a university spokeswoman says. Research on animals at OHSU and elsewhere has led to vaccines for COVID-19, polio, smallpox, mumps and measles, she adds, and to new treatments for infertility, heart disease and diabetes. The primate center received $56 million from the National Institutes of Health in the 2024 fiscal year.
PPS OFFICIALS ANGLE FOR STATE DOLLARS: The big debate over education spending in Salem this legislative session is a chicken-egg question—which comes first, the spending or the accountability. The governor and the superintendent of the state’s largest school district polished different sides of that coin this week. On March 10, Gov. Tina Kotek announced two bills she’s crafted for the Legislature that would tie increased spending—$11.36 billion—to metrics like absenteeism and math performance, and build support at the Oregon Department of Education to intervene at poorly performing schools. In a March 11 press conference at Roosevelt High School, Portland Public Schools officials embraced efforts to improve student outcomes, but stressed that schools are in crisis and need more funding. “An accountability system without support is aspirational at best,” said PPS Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong. Without the increased investment from the governor, she said, the district could have faced a $60 million deficit instead of a $40 million one for the upcoming year. The district will have to make tough cuts to school-based programming and staff, she adds. “We just want the resources to continue to move the needle in ways that we’ve already planned.”
POWER PLAY PROCEEDS IN FOREST PARK: A hearings officer for the city of Portland has approved Portland General Electric’s plan to upgrade transmission lines at the northern end of Forest Park, a project that will require cutting down 376 trees and filling two wetlands in an area that’s home to the northern red-legged frog, an at-risk species. To reach her decision, Marisha Childs dismissed a long list of environmental concerns from staff at Portland’s Permitting & Development Office, which in January had strongly recommended rejecting the project. Childs found instead in her 33-page decision that PGE’s “habitat mitigation plan extensively, credibly, and persuasively provides for how the project proposal will protect Forest Park’s native plant and animal communities, its soil and water resources, and allows for the ecosystem to grow into an ancient forest.” PGE, which welcomed the decision, said it will replace the removed trees by planting new ones in overheated neighborhoods beyond Forest Park. “The decision to approve PGE’s permit request is an example of the process working as it should,” vice president of policy and resource planning Kristen Sheeran said in a statement. Scott Fogarty, executive director of the Forest Park Conservancy, which has opposed the project throughout the approval process, says his group is likely to appeal the decision to the Portland City Council. “This is a great step backwards in our city’s efforts to promote climate resilience, community engagement, and proper use of our critical greenspaces,” Fogarty says. “We plan on working with other organizations and local community partners to continue to push back on PGE’s efforts.”
ANOTHER FORMER LIQUOR OFFICIAL SUES: Blowback from a scandal that rocked the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission in 2023 continues. On March 7, Will Higlin, the agency’s former deputy director, filed suit in Marion County Circuit Court, alleging he was improperly fired March 10, 2023. The lawsuit comes on the heels of a similar lawsuit filed by another former agency official last month. In his lawsuit, Higlin says it was customary practice in the decade he worked at the agency for “lobbyists, elected officials, the general public, restaurateurs, and retail liquor stores” to request to purchase rare bottles of liquor, such as Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. But after a 2022 whistleblower complaint, the OLCC conducted an internal investigation, which led to reprimands for Higlin and other top agency officials. Higlin says in his lawsuit he was assured the investigation would be kept confidential and that he would not be disciplined if he answered questions truthfully. The Oregonian, however, obtained details of the investigation through a public records request and broke the story in early 2023. Since his firing last March, Higlin says, he has been unable to land a job. He is seeking $330,000 in damages. The Oregon Department of Justice, which represents state agencies in court, declined to comment on the lawsuit.