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EXPERIMENTERS PLAN TO DEAFEN MONKEYS
Experimenters at the University of California at San Francisco, California, USA (UCSF), plan to deafen squirrel monkeys by exposing them for three hours to a 140-decibel loudspeaker, with sounds in the "very high frequency range." At 120 decibels humans start to experience pain, according to the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
Experimenters Marshal Fong and Stephen Cheung have had trouble obtaining the loudspeakers! Radley Hirsch, founder and owner of San Francisco Audio, refused to sell them any, saying that the experiments are "kind of inhumane." Hirsch called PETA, an animal protection group headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, USA, which sent a protest fax to the university.
Zach Hall, vice-chancellor for research at UCSF, told the San Francisco Examiner that millions of Americans have the same disability that will be inflicted on the monkeys, many as a result of (voluntary) exposure to noisy rock music concerts. Hall confirmed that the monkeys would suffer ear lesions, and that their brains would be examined some months later.
Dr. Sheri Speede, a veterinarian who works for In Defense of Animals, studied the protocol for the experiment and issued a strong critique to several Internet lists, including "Primate Talk." She commented:
These monkeys will undergo extensive brain surgery before they are blasted with three hours of deafening sound and awakened...The project, entitled "Functional Organization of the Auditory Forebrain," has received approval from the UCSF Committee on Animal Research (CAR) for the third year in a row.
During 1996 and 1997, 24 squirrel monkeys were subjected to a three day brain surgery. Each monkey was anesthetized with gas anesthesia, and an endotracheal tube was placed through a hole cut into the trachea - instead of through the mouth and larynx as is usual...
After an endotracheal tube and IV catheter were placed in each monkey, the gas anesthesia was discontinued. For the next three days, with their heads locked in place by the piercing pins of a stereotaxic vice, the monkeys were maintained on an IV drip of Pentobarbital...
In each monkey, the "investigator" incised the scalp, dissected away the skin and muscles of a section of the skull, drilled and removed a plate of skull bone and placed electrodes in the auditory cortex of the brain.
The investigator then kept each monkey alive, locked in the stereotaxic vice with his/her brain exposed, for three days while he mapped various cortical responses.
During these three days, he claimed that the level of anesthesia was monitored, presumably 24 hours per day, by continual attention to respiratory and heart rate and by checking reflexes and muscle tone every 15 minutes.
Unfortunately, pentobarbital can depress respiratory and heart rate, even in an unconscious animal. Therefore, in my opinion these parameters are not good for assessing depth of anesthesia.
If muscle tone and reflexes were checked as infrequently as every 15 minutes, it is very probable that there were periods of time in which the monkeys were conscious enough to perceive their predicament and suffer terribly.
The investigator as much as acknowledges this probability by stating that the depth of anesthesia could be quickly increased by an injection of ketamine. All monkeys were killed after their ordeal.
In 1998, the CAR-approved protocol was modified to include the recovery experiment...Six monkeys will be subjected to a six-hour brain surgery, followed by exposure to three hours of deafening sound, designed to cause "Tone Induced Hearing Loss" ...
When the monkeys have awakened after this brain surgery and deafening sound exposure, the investigators will evaluate them "daily" and "in the event of ongoing postoperative discomfort" they will relieve their pain with tylenol, an "over-the-counter" (non-prescription) medication. After peeling the skin and muscles off these monkeys' heads and removing a plate of their skulls, then blasting them with deafening sound for three hours, these researchers will give them TYLENOL, if they need it.
In my opinion this is an extremely callous and insensitive approach to these monkeys' pain, which any reasonable person would expect to be severe and prolonged.
In Defense of Animals has staged several demonstrations outside the University since they learned of the experiment.
HOW TO PROTEST THESE CRUEL EXPERIMENTS
Readers wishing to comment on these cruel experiments may contact:
J. Michael Bishop, Chancellor
University of California - San Francisco
Room S216, 513 Parnassus Avenue
San Francisco CA 94143, USA
Overseas members should also send a protest to the US Embassy in their
country of residence. In the United Kingdom, this is
24 Grosvenor Square, London W1A 1AE, England.
Meet Igor, one of IPPL's
Sanctuary Gibbons