ARIZONA NEWS

PETA files complaint about alleged workplace violations at Mesa monkey research center

Jul 31, 2024, 4:25 AM

The Mesa-based monkey-breeding facility owned and operated by the University of Washington that PET...

The Mesa-based monkey-breeding facility owned and operated by the University of Washington that PETA filed a complaint against. (PETA)

(PETA)

PHOENIX — PETA filed a complaint on Monday for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to investigate a Mesa-based monkey-breeding facility owned and operated by the University of Washington.

Documents show there have been 49 workplace safety violations that took place over the past three years at the facility, according to PETA.

The Mesa facility houses 400 to 500 endangered pig-tailed macaque monkeys who are bred and later shipped to the University of Washington’s National Primate Research Center laboratory (and other facilities) for experimentation.

“Workers are routinely injured, sickened and exposed to the deadly pathogens that run rampant in the University of Washington’s monkey facilities,” PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel said in a press release. “PETA calls on OSHA to investigate this dangerous and apparently incompetent facility before these violations turn into a public health emergency.”

The documents suggest employees at the center are regularly bitten and or scratched by the monkeys who are under stress. Workers are also poked with needles on occasion and have been splashed in the eyes with body fluids from the monkeys.

Illnesses are also being spread from the contaminated equipment, so much so that one employee in Seattle said that “virtually everyone … gets ill at some point in their first six months” from either staph or shigella infections or being around “aerosolized fecal matter,” according to PETA’s press release.

The monkeys at the Mesa facility carry bacteria and viruses that can be spread to humans, including shigella, salmonella, staphylococcus bacteria and the herpes B virus — a virus that’s lethal to 80% of humans who contract it, according to PETA.

When workers are exposed to the herpes B virus in Seattle, they are taken to the University’s emergency room for evaluation and treatment, something that is dissimilar to the way exposure is handled at the Mesa facility.

Infections and diseases were “rampant” at the Mesa facility which resulted in monkeys’ deaths, according to the press release via a 2021 investigation by The Arizona Republic. 

Some of the infringements at the Mesa facility also violated the federal Animal Welfare Act, however these violations were not reported to authorities even though it was required. There has been limited involvement from state agencies since the facility is on tribal land.

PETA filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in June and asked for action and civil and/or criminal penalties through the U.S. Department of Justice to be handed out.

Michele Basso was removed as primate center director by the University of Washington on May 31. This came two months after PETA asked for her dismissal and gave UW documentation to suggest she was responsible for multiple violations of animal welfare laws and worker injuries.

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PETA files complaint about alleged workplace violations at Mesa monkey research center