Military Creating ‘Crisis’ Situation for Monkeys in Labs
Hidden behind closed laboratory doors at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, terrified vervet monkeys are being used as targets in a cruel chemical-weapons training program called “Medical Management of Chemical and Biological Casualties” (MCBC).
The course description states that students learn how to “manage casualties of chemical and biological agent exposure … by participating in the resuscitation of a lab animal exposed to a nerve agent simulant.”
A recent participant in this course described her experience in a 2003 university newsletter, writing:
The laboratory exercise gave the participants a hands-on opportunity to observe a non-human primate, in our case, a macaque, in an induced cholinergic crisis. The signs of the simulated nerve agent can be observed, then vital support and therapy is provided to reverse the crisis.
According to the New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority, a cholinergic crisis is characterized by the following symptoms: “excessive salivation and sweating, miosis, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, involuntary defecation and urination, frequent urge to urinate, bradycardia or tachycardia, hypotension or hypertension, confusion, seizures, coma, bronchospasm, laryngospasm, fasciculation, severe muscle weakness, paralysis. Death may result from respiratory paralysis and/or pulmonary oedema.”
The use of nonhuman primates in this course is a flagrant violation of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) February 16, 2005, animal welfare policy, which states: “Prohibited uses for dogs, cats, nonhuman primates, and marine mammals are the following: … Inflicting wounds with any type of weapon(s) to conduct training in surgical or other medical treatment procedures.”
Videos, lectures, manikin models, and human field-training courses are more than adequate to successfully teach all of the learning objectives contained in this course.
In addition, the army has developed a state-of-the-art non-animal simulator called STATCare (Simulation Technologies for Advanced Trauma Care) that has the following features: “patient assessment, chemical exposure modeling, physiological modeling, antidote modeling, 3D patient visualization, medically-relevant animation, and interactive medical care on a desktop computer platform.”
Subjecting any animal to debilitating nerve agents is indefensible. Please write to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the address shown below. Urge him to abide by the DOD’s official animal welfare policy and end the use of all animals in the MCBC course:
The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000
Read the letter we sent to Secretary Rumsfeld.
Learn more about the military’s war on animals.
