Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institutes of Health are using an island off the coast of South Carolina to breed monkeys for use in horrific “maximum pain” animal experimentation.
New photographs and details obtained by White Coat Waste Project and provided exclusively to Timcast reveal the extent of the taxpayer funded cruelty and lack of regard for the well-being of these highly intelligent animals.
“Our new investigation has found that Fauci’s revolting record on taxpayer-funded animal testing is even bigger than #Beaglegate. He’s also wasting millions of tax dollars to subsidize a secretive island where primates are bred for his labs that inflict punishing pain on monkeys and ghoulishly withhold pain relief,” Devin Murphy, Public Policy and Communications Manager at White Coat Waste Project, told Timcast. “Fauci is addicted to spending and taxpayers don’t want to foot the bill for his government monkey business.”
Approximately 600 monkeys are taken from Morgan Island per year and shipped to some of the federal government's most painful and cruel laboratories for animal research.
As of June 30, 2019, there were 3,044 primates living on Morgan Island, with 77% of the population being females, according to documents obtained by White Coat Waste Project through a Freedom of Information Act request. It is estimated that approximately 750 newborn monkeys are born on the island to await their potential use for vivisection each year.
The island has been managed for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases by Charles River Laboratories, one of the largest suppliers of laboratory animals in the world, since 2007. According to federal spending databases, a total of $13.5 million of a potential $27.5 million contract has been given to Charles River Laboratories to maintain the monkey island colony since March 2018.
A sizable chunk of those funds, $8.9 million, was paid by Dr. Fauci’s division (NIAID) of the NIH.
The monkeys themselves are also owned by NIAID.
According to documents obtained by WCW, Charles River is tasked with “the year-round daily maintenance of a non-human primate (NHP) breeding colony. […] It is anticipated that the number of animals provided by the Government should produce a minimum of 500 animals per year for the Government’s use.”
A 2018 NIAID paper describes the development of the deadly Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHFV) in monkeys in very graphic detail. White Coat Waste has also provided Timcast with photos of one of the monkeys that was infected with the virus. The horrific photos were originally published as a supplement to the paper.
The agency used fifteen rhesus and African green monkeys for the pilot study. They used a dozen macaque monkeys in the main study, where they were injected with the painful virus. They were killed on the seventh day of the test.
Though NIAID has recently attempted to publicly distance themselves from cruel animal testing by stealth editing their funding efforts out of research documents, the paper plainly states (as of November 16, 2021), “We thank the staff of the Rocky Mountain Veterinary Branch, Division of Intramural Research (DIR), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH) for assistance with animal care and clinical and pathological veterinary services, and Atsushi Okumura for veterinary expertise throughout the study. We would also like to thank the members of the Visual and Medical Arts (DIR, NIAID, NIH) for aid in figure development. This work was funded by the Intramural Research Programme of the NIAID, NIH.” (Emphasis added).
An analysis conducted by White Coat Waste Project found that Fauci’s NIAID has funded several other extensive maximum pain (USDA Pain Column E) experiments on primates from FY13-20.
These experiments include infecting primates with Ebola and other hemorrhagic viruses, Tuberculosis, or inducing sepsis; and more recently, modeling SARS-CoV-2 on different primate species.
Excerpts from NIH documents detail some of the horror that these primates endured before their deaths.“Ebola Virus infection may result in uniform lethality. Filoviruses cause a viral hemorrhagic disease which rapidly progresses from onset and includes high fever, anorexia, and recumbency, development of petechial and/or macular rash, coagulopathy and multi-organ failure. It is likely that the animals will experience some discomfort because of the virus, additional discomfort may result from the animals’ immune response to the infection,” explained one document.
Another noted that “animals infected with Ebola virus will experience pain and distress and the infection is expected to be lethal in non-protected animals.”
“Infection with the Lassa virus (Josiah) is 100% lethal in Cynomolgus macaques within approximately 14 days post challenge. Signs of illness can include fever, rash, diarrhea, bleeding and malaise prior to internal hemorrhage and multi-organ failure leading to death. The animals in some of the vaccinated groups may, and the control animals will, experience symptoms of Lassa virus infection,” researchers reported in yet another document detailing their work.
A study they conducted on Nipah virus said that the animals were in such bad shape between the sixth and ninth days post infection that they needed to be killed at that point to avoid being inhumane.
“Upon inoculation with Nipah virus animals develop clinical signs of disease. These signs may include weight loss, respiratory and neurological disorders. […] Control animals inoculated with Nipah virus-Bangladesh normally meet humane endpoint criteria between the evening of 6 dpi and the morning of 9 dpi,” the study reported.
While studying the Lassa virus, they allowed the macaque monkeys to suffer until they died from being infected. They wrote that “infection of cynomolgus macaques with Lassa virus will cause clinical disease and non-protected animals will ultimately succumb around day 8-17.”
The primates from Morgan Island have also been used for testing related to AIDS, polio, and even bio-terrorism. Only researchers and officials are allowed on the secretive island, which sits at 32.4774º N and 80.5195ºW. The public is banned from entering.
Commenting on the cruel tests, the founder of Small Primate Animal Rescue TN, Michael Robison, told Timcast that “once again, the powers that be are exploiting these animals for their own gain. In the end, these tests are ineffective. They are not curing or alleviating any sickness. They’re just collecting data — and data points equal dollars.”
Timcast reached out to NIAID with questions about the island and these specific tests. We did not hear back by time of publishing, but will update this article if a response is provided.
