University of California - San Francisco
Stephen Lisberger's Monkey Experiments
On his web site, UCSF animal researcher Stephen Lisberger boasts of "the good life" - lunchtime workouts at the local gym, surfing the web to keep up with the stock market and his favorite sports teams, dining at chic Bay Area restaurants, and spending weekend afternoons at wine-tastings and softball games.
If only "his" monkeys were so lucky.
Chained on leashes inside their cages, "his" monkeys sit totally alone, metal coils in their eyes, bolts, metal plates, steel cylinders and electrodes drilled and cemented in their skulls. Eyeglasses that distort their vision are bolted to their heads for up to 12 weeks at a time. They are denied free access to fluids in order to keep them thirsty and motivate them to "perform" for juice rewards.
Prolonged Suffering & Death
Clinical records from Lisberger's lab reveal a gruesome cycle of sedations, invasive surgical procedures infections, and medical interventions. Swollen, irritated eyes, seeping pus, bleeding surgical wounds, depressed behavior and self-mutilation are common.
To prepare monkeys for his experiments, Lisberger starts by slicing their eyes open with scalpels so that wire coils can be placed inside.
Screws are then drilled into their skulls, and a metal plate is placed under the scalp. Bolts that protrude from the plate through the scalp will later be used to screw monkeys by the head into restraining chairs.
Next, Lisberger drills holes into the monkeys' skulls and inserts stainless steel recording cylinders. Electrodes are driven through the cylinders directly into their brains. After a series of surgical procedures, a neurosurgeon drills into the skull, exposes the brain and removes a part of it with suction. After this, the monkeys cannot sit or stand for several days, and must be handfed food and drink.
Some of these surgical procedures are carried out many times, as bone erodes around the various bolts and implants and the eye coils cause such irritation that they must be removed and placed in the other eye. In addition, scar tissue must be peeled from the lining of the brain "dozens of times" for each monkey.
In experiments Lisberger calls "running the monkeys," the primates are strapped into restraining chairs, heads bolted into place so they are unable to move, and placed inside a plastic box. The chair is placed on a turntable that rotates them periodically.
The monkeys are forced to sit in these chairs for up to 8 hours a day, while electrodes implanted in their brains record neurological activity as they move their eyes in a certain pattern for juice rewards. If a monkey doesn't perform, he or she is denied fluids entirely until the next day when the animal is placed on the experiment again.
For some of these unfortunate animals, the daily horror can last three years or longer.
Science from the Dark Ages
Lisberger has been conducting virtually the same experiments for 21 years. In that time, science has made tremendous strides in development of non-invasive research technologies, and ethics has progressed to the point where such highly invasive in cruel experiments are not tolerated by the public at large. Yet, Lisberger's justifications and writings in his approved protocols and correspondence with oversight committees reveal that this scientist remains mired in the science of yesterday, when very little concern was shown to the sentient experimental subjects, and very few restrictions on the care and use of animals were in place.
Gruesome Experiments Violate Federal Law
In recent years, Lisberger has run afoul of federal law and has been found by the USDA to: a) not be following the experimental procedure approved by UCSF's animal research oversight committee; b) not searching for alternatives to his archaic training techniques using water deprivation; c) not giving monkeys enough fluids; d) not ensuring that monkeys are getting enough food; e) not providing monkeys with adequate veterinary care; and e) using a sick animals in experiments. In fact, UCSF was forced to pay a $2,000 fine to the USDA for violations of the Animal Welfare Act committed in Lisberger's lab.
In addition the legal transgressions, Lisberger's experiments violate other federal guidelines including those calling for social housing of primates (Lisberger keeps his monkeys housed alone) and against multiple surgical procedures (Lisberger subjects the monkeys to as many as nine survival brain surgeries.)
Despite all of these problems, UCSF's Committee on Animal Research (CAR) continues to rubberstamp Lisberger's experiments, making only slight modifications to his water deprivation procedures following the USDA findings. Appallingly, even those modifications continue to violate the Animal Welfare Act, according to the most recent USDA inspection report dated January 2002.
Scientists Speak Out
Numerous physicians and scientists have reviewed the Lisberger protocols and have been horrified by the extraordinary suffering inflicted on intelligent and social non-human primates. One of these experts is University of California San Diego neuroscientist and prominent Alzheimer's researcher Lawrence Hansen, M.D. who has published 131 articles in some of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals has stated, “. . . I’ve had many years experience in neuroscience research, but I have never previously encountered experiments which would deliver quite so much suffering for so comparatively little scientific gain.”
Dr. Hansen also characterized Lisberger’s claim that his research would shed light on Alzheimer’s disease as “one of the more ludicrous stretches from basic science to human application that I have ever encountered in my 20 years of research into Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases affecting human beings.” In fact, Dr. Hansen states that the neural pathway that Lisberger is studying is “one of the few neural systems not involved in AD! This cynical attempt to justify animal cruelty by linking it with a treatment for devastating human disease is disingenuous at best, and can more fairly be viewed as deceptive."
Related Links
- What You Can Do
- Lisberger's Monkey Records
- IDA's response to NIH defense of Lisberger
- Neuroscientist speaks out
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