For Rapid Liberate:
December 8, 2023
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Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Houston – PETA is urging the Facilities for Illness Keep watch over and Prevention (CDC) nowadays to droop all monkey imports after the company printed in an internet seminar this week that from 2021 to 2023, there used to be a stunning building up in imported shipments of monkeys with tuberculosis (TB), which is transmissible to people. Between 2010 and 2020, there have been no showed instances.
In January 2023, a cargo of macaques from Southeast Asia contained the biggest share of monkeys inflamed with TB within the historical past of importation into the U.S. The 26 inflamed long-tailed macaques on this cargo harbored a extremely infectious TB pressure that hasn’t ever been noticed in animals within the U.S.
Paperwork received through PETA display that the 26 inflamed monkeys have been most likely imported through world monkey broker and experimenter Charles River Laboratories as a part of a cargo of 540 monkeys imported from Vietnam and delivered to Houston. In a separate letter, PETA is urgent Charles River CEO James Foster to substantiate whether or not the corporate is accountable for the cargo.
PETA lately uncovered Charles River’s secretive plans to construct a monkey-breeding facility and warehouse on ecologically delicate land in Brazoria County, Texas, that might be populated with monkeys Charles River is uploading from Asia and Mauritius. TB, together with this new pressure that used to be described within the January 2023 cargo, has been proven to contaminate cows in Asia, elevating the threat of spillover in Texas.
“Uploading 1000’s of monkeys is taking part in with fireplace and seriously will increase the chance of the unfold of sicknesses transmissible to people,” says PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “PETA is asking at the CDC to droop all monkey imports right away.”
A monkey confined to a transport crate. Credit score: PETA
Previous this yr, PETA printed that monkeys imported into the U.S. from Mauritius led to a TB outbreak at a Michigan laboratory. Monkeys from Cambodia have additionally arrived inflamed with a bacterium so fatal that the U.S. classifies it as a bioterrorism agent.
Charles River is lately underneath civil and prison investigation through the U.S. Division of Justice for violations of the Endangered Species and Lacey acts. The corporate additionally lately stated that it’s underneath investigation through the Enforcement Department of the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee associated with its sourcing of monkeys from Asia. Greater than 1,000 long-tailed macaques are nonetheless being confined in limbo at Charles River’s facility in Houston after the corporate allegedly imported them illegally from Cambodia.
For more info on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please seek advice from PETA.org, pay attention to The PETA Podcast, or practice the gang on X (previously Twitter), Fb, or Instagram.