Victory: NASA Grounds Plans to Irradiate Monkeys

From The Houston Press
By Richard Connelly

PETA Says NASA Ending Monkey Experiments

​PETA is proclaiming victory in their ongoing battle to stop radiation experiments on monkeys that had been planned by NASA:

“Well, folks, you did it. After scores of protests and more than 100,000 letters, phone calls, and e-mails from PETA supporters–including some high-profile allies, such as Sir Paul McCartney, Bob Barker, Alicia Silverstone, members of Congress, and even a former NASA astronaut and engineer–the space agency has quietly called off plans to conduct cruel radiation experiments on monkeys.”

We haven’t gotten confirmation from NASA. The experiments caused at least one NASA employee to quit in protest, and we profiled April Evans and her fight in October.

The experiments, planned for the Brookhaven Institute in New York, were intended to, in PETA’s language, have monkeys be “isolated in cages and subjected to years of behavioral experiments to measure the damage caused by the radiation. Such damage likely would have included brain damage, cataracts, cancerous tumors, loss of motor control, and early death.”

Former NASA engineer speaks out against primate experiments

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NASA has defended the experiments as necessary; for the cover story linked above they referred questions to Brookhaven and McLean Hospital, both of which referred questions to NASA.

If we hear anything from the space agency we’ll update. PETA, though, is happy:

“Cruelty to animals has no part in NASA’s mission, and the agency’s decision to call off this cruel experiment has us over the moon,” said PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. “We believe that officials finally realized that blasting monkeys with radiation is plain old bad science.”

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another victory
under our belts
we are our heard
our words are felt
that is why we
will never quit
no animals should
ever take any
human dished out
sh*t!!!!!!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson