Washington, DC – Today Congresswoman Dina Titus (NV-01), a member of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, sent a letter to Acting Director Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D. of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) inquiring about the recent decision to award the Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC) at the University of Washington an additional $65 million grant that perpetuates outdated and inefficient primate experiments rather than ethical and translatable research.

Federally funded primate research centers have been investigated for their cruel experiments administered on monkeys. These practices often violate health codes and provide no useful findings for human medicine.

“The funding signals an apparent oversight of the well-documented noncompliance with state health standards at the facility and disregards the cruel primate experiments taking place at WaNPRC that contribute little to advances in human medicine,” the Members wrote. “With the award of this additional funding, NIH is disregarding these flagrant actions by WaNPRC. Based on their track record, it is clear that these new funds will undoubtedly be used to further abuse these animals in futile experiments.”

NIH has previously investigated the taxpayer-funded experiments performed at WaNPRC for the high mortality rates in often-endangered primate species kept in the facility. The Washington Primate Center’s practices have led to many ethics concerns, including staff admitting under oath to destroying records, violations of federal spending transparency law, illegal importation of sick primates into the country, and monkeys dying under mysterious circumstances.

Other federal agencies have already begun the process of reducing primate research due to its lack of contribution to improving human health and the increasing availability of research alternatives.

In addition to Rep. Titus, this letter was signed by 4 other Members of Congress, including Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Mark Takano (D-CA), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA).

Read today’s full letter here.