Peta releases video showing experiments on infant monkeys at Univ of Washington

PETA has released video of infant macaques used in a University of Washington study of domoic acid, a marine-algae toxin that can accumulate in shellfish and harm people. From 2014 to 2020, researchers gave daily doses to 32 pregnant monkeys to investigate possible effects on offspring’s brain development. After birth, 28 infants were separated from their mothers, bottle-fed and housed individually; some were only two days old when tested. The footage, filmed between 2017 and 2019 and obtained through a public-records request, shows babies with electrodes attached as researchers assess their reflexes and memory. PETA says the visibly distressed animals were killed after the experiments. The project received more than $4.2 million in federal funding.

Animal-welfare advocates argue that maternal separation harms macaques and may alter the biology being studied. The university says the research advanced understanding of how prenatal exposure could affect learning and memory, with continuing public-health relevance, while acknowledging the importance of maternal care and saying specialized staff oversee animal welfare. It says no infant studies are currently under way, though relevant protocols remain active. The domoic-acid project’s public-health impact is unclear, and critics question whether primate experiments reliably translate to human treatments, citing decades of research without an approved HIV vaccine. The dispute comes as US agencies explore alternatives such as organ-on-a-chip systems and computer models, even as more than 106,000 monkeys were held in US facilities in 2025.