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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Michael Metzler, a doctor from The Dalles who is part of the committee, tells WW the primate center is outdated and a waste of money.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.