Champagne corks are popping inside PETA's headquarters today as it celebrates a tremendous victory for animals and for science: the phase out of experiments on monkeys at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
PETA thanks the administration for taking this decisive, long awaited action—one we’ve pressed for nonstop and that reflects what the undeniable evidence that experiments on monkeys aren’t helping humans one iota, as the four-decade failed effort to create a marketable HIV vaccine has shown.
For years, endangered and often infected long-tailed macaques have been funneled into U.S. laboratories. CDC’s own data shows monkeys arriving with tuberculosis, melioidosis, and other pathogens, weak testing protocols, and a supply chain riddled with escapes, disease lapses, and regulatory failures. PETA has exposed these dangers at every turn, and today’s announcement proves that the system is finally confronting the truth.
PETA is calling on the administration to build on this breakthrough: shut down the primate centers, end the monkey-import pipeline, and move every federal agency toward state-of-the-art, human-relevant science. Today, the CDC made a historic, visionary decision—one that protects public health, respects endangered species, and recognizes that the future of research is animal-free. Now every other federally funded primate facility must be next.