A number of recent articles in the AWI Quarterly have addressed issues related to the use of nonhuman primates in research: from an alleged international monkey-laundering scheme, to a research industry bid to reverse a species’ endangered listing, to plans for a massive primate breeding facility in Georgia.
Why are these primate-related issues occurring all at once? This article will supply relevant background information and provide a larger framework that explains the connections.
Primate shortage
Approximately 105,000 primates are used or held for research and testing in the United States each year. Between 15,000 and 35,000 primates are imported annually, and at least 90 percent of those imports are long-tailed macaques (LTMs). The majority of imported LTMs are used or resold by pharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations, and other for-profit entities.
Demand for LTMs—the primate of choice for infectious disease research by drug- and vaccine-development companies—skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. China had previously been the US research industry’s primary source of LTMs. In 2020, however, after a live wildlife market in China was identified as a likely point of origin for the pandemic, China banned nearly all trade in wildlife, effectively freezing LTM exports. This precipitated a primate shortage that has dramatically reshaped the US primate research landscape.
Smuggling indictment
With the sudden shutdown of China exports, Cambodia stepped in to become the US research industry’s principal primate supplier, at enormous profit: Between 2019 and 2022, the value of the Cambodian monkey export business reportedly surged from an estimated $34 million to $253 million, and the selling price of a single monkey skyrocketed from an estimated $3,000 to $50,000 or more.
Monkeys imported into the United States for experimentation are typically captive-bred, since wild-caught monkeys can harbor diseases that may endanger human health and affect research outcomes. US demand, however, quickly outstripped Cambodia’s supply of captive-bred LTMs. Rather than curtailing the lucrative exports, two Cambodian government officials and six individuals with ties to a monkey-breeding operation allegedly engaged in an international conspiracy to launder wild-caught LTMs by swapping paperwork that falsely reclassified thousands of wild-caught monkeys as captive-bred, according to a federal indictment. (See AWI Quarterly, winter 2022.) One official was later acquitted. US-based research industry giant Charles River Laboratories is also under federal investigation for its conduct related to Cambodian LTM imports.
Long-tailed macaques’ endangered status
In March 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)—the global authority on ecosystem health and biodiversity—uplisted LTMs from “vulnerable” to “endangered” on its Red List of Threatened Species. This designation was based on a scientific assessment that cited accelerating demand from the biomedical research industry as a contributing factor to LTMs’ population decline. Red List designations inform species listings under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and the US Endangered Species Act, which can result in wildlife trade restrictions.
In response, the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR)—an industry-funded, pro-animal-research lobbying group—filed a petition with IUCN challenging the endangered designation. (See AWI Quarterly, fall 2023.) After reviewing NABR’s petition, an IUCN committee found that “there appears to be adequate evidence to support the current [endangered] listing” but asked the original assessors to submit a revised evaluation that includes additional scientific data and a breakdown of the relative impact of proposed contributing factors on population size. The reassessment has been submitted and is currently under review.
Domestic Breeding
The primate shortage and uncertain access to future imports have prompted some researchers to call for increased domestic breeding. In 2024, a new company, Safer Human Medicine (SHM), headed by industry insiders who held leadership roles in companies with troubling animal welfare histories, proposed building a massive LTM breeding facility in Bainbridge, Georgia. At peak capacity, the complex would hold 30,000 LTMs—at least triple the number of monkeys currently housed at any other US breeding facility. Although court battles spurred by local opposition have left this project in limbo, the company is charging ahead: It recently purchased a Florida facility from Charles River Laboratories to quarantine and hold LTMs, ostensibly in anticipation of sending them on to the planned Georgia facility.
Given the precarious status of the wild LTM population and concerns over the legitimacy of Cambodian exports, AWI believes that international trade of LTMs should stop. But increased domestic breeding is no panacea, particularly in light of the abysmal Animal Welfare Act records of existing, smaller US breeding facilities. Federally funded National Primate Research Centers, for instance, have notoriously poor welfare records. (See AWI Quarterly, spring 2024.) And Alpha Genesis, Inc. (AGI), which operates a facility one-third the size of the proposed SHM site, has been dogged by whistleblower complaints and USDA inspection reports that chronicle repeated monkey escapes, injuries, and deaths—including, most recently, 43 monkeys escaping into the surrounding neighborhood and 22 monkeys dying from carbon monoxide poisoning two weeks later. AGI’s CEO reportedly downplayed the severity of the allegations: “In the context of caring for over 10,000 monkeys … adverse incidents do occur in isolation.” One can only imagine how many “adverse incidents” might occur at larger facilities.
Time to turn the page?
Against a backdrop of a dwindling wild LTM population, the increased demand for LTMs and reduction in reliable import sources have created opportunities for huge profits, incentivizing illicit trade in wild-caught LTMs and the construction of enormous for-profit domestic breeding facilities.
A report by a committee of scientists (half of whom are primate researchers) states that research with primates is “necessary for both public health and national security.” Yet the future of international trade and domestic breeding is uncertain at best, and either option would be accompanied by animal welfare, conservation, and public health concerns that have only increased in light of the current research landscape.
The biomedical industry faces a reckoning. As one industry consultant questioned in an article in Science: “Are we in the drug discovery business, or are we in the monkey breeding business?” In AWI’s view, the best way forward is to maintain an emphasis on the former and reduce a troubled reliance on the latter by vastly increasing investments in promising non-animal methodologies, such as “organ-on-a-chip” technology.