Skip to main content
For years, animal rights activists have argued that Oregon Health & Science University should shutter its primate center—a de facto monkey ranch bounded by Beaverton subdivisions—because using primates for medical research is archaic, unnecessary and cruel.
Now, with OHSU seeking state approval to buy Legacy Health, groups allied with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are making a business case against the place.
Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, is tackling the economics most directly. In a letter to a volunteer group of Oregonians advising the state on whether the crosstown merger of OHSU and Legacy Health should go through, Barnard compares the Oregon National Primate Research Center to retailer Macy’s, whose real estate is worth more than its business. OHSU land and buildings in and around the primate center are worth $230 million, Barnard says.
“Closure of the primate facility will release substantial resources that can be used for patient care and other programs,” Barnard wrote March 7 to the community review board set up by the Health Care Market Oversight program at the Oregon Health Authority.
OHSU in turn argues that breeding, prodding, poking, and dissecting primates is necessary for medical research that can’t be done with less-human life forms, or even computers.
The two sides often disagree on simple facts about the primate center, like how many people work there. It’s an important fact because closing the place would cost jobs in the metro area just as Nike and Intel falter, and as OHSU cuts nonmonkey positions. Undaunted, we’re going to try and describe the fight with numbers. Here goes:
5,628: The number of primates at the center. Most are macaques, which range from Japan to Gibraltar. Except for humans, no other primate is so widespread. They are valued for research because they are among our closest cousins and even develop human diseases like macular degeneration and an illness that looks a lot like multiple sclerosis.
900: “Necropsies” done at the primate center each year. A necropsy is an autopsy on an animal that dies, like the baby monkeys that OHSU researchers euthanized after getting their pregnant mothers high on pot cookies for four months. They dissected the babies to see if their lungs were smaller because mom was stoned. Conclusion: There are “clear concerns for potential effects of maternal THC edible consumption on offspring respiratory health.”
409: Employees at the primate center, according to OHSU. About 170 are members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The Physicians Committee says only 150 employees are involved in animal care, and many are maintenance workers who could be reassigned. The dispute matters because AFSCME would like the center to stay open. The union endorsed Tina Kotek for governor and contributed to her campaign. By calling for the center to be closed last week, Kotek wedged herself between labor and animal lovers.
$100 MILLION: The amount that Peter Barr-Gillespie, head of research at OHSU, says it would cost to close the primate center. Greg Westergaard, founder of a primate breeding center in South Carolina, says that sounds about right. Other centers could accommodate some of the monkeys, but it would be tough to rehome them all. Sanctuaries might take some, but OHSU would have to pay for their retirements, Westergaard says. “They have to be fed every day, and they need things to do,” he says. And, like humans, they need medical care as they age.
$60 MILLION: The annual budget for the Primate Center, $56 million of which comes from the National Institutes of Health, whose budget the Trump administration is trying to cut.
6: The number of rhesus macaques that underwent “non-sedated electro-ejaculations” after being strapped to a chair and connected to a P-T Electronics Model 303 110-volt AC electroejaculator to see if their testicles would return to normal function after researchers stopped feeding them pot cookies. Conclusion: After being baked every day for seven months, macaques that go cold turkey for 140 days get 73% of their testicle volume back.
1,000-FOLD: The factor by which a single shot of an experimental injection reduced levels of the primate form of HIV in monkeys for at least 30 weeks, according to a 2024 study done by OHSU and the University of California, San Francisco, using antiviral “therapeutic interfering particles.”
857: The number of published articles by primate center researchers and their collaborators since 2019, including nine published advances toward a cure for HIV since 2020. Researchers published seven groundbreaking papers on vaccine development in the same period.
$20,000: The price of a healthy monkey used for research. The price shot up from around $4,000 in 2019, Westergaard says, when the Trump administration slapped tariffs on China and the Chinese government stopped exporting monkeys to the U.S. OHSU is allowed to sell its monkeys. It sold 82 macaques in the year ended Sept. 30, 2024, according to mandated reports to the state, and bought six baboons. No prices were listed.