Alfred and his two wives

That is a direct quote from A Reproducible and Translatable Model of Focal Ischemia in the Visual Cortex of Infant and Adult Marmoset Monkeys (2014) – a graphic yet real account of what happens to these sentient and intelligent animals - often when fully conscious

According to an article written by primate experimenter James Bourne in 2016 “The welfare of every animal is continuously monitored and recorded. The outstanding facilities provided to support animal research in Australia are governed by individual state and territory legislation, ensuring the highest standards.”

Reviewing primate research and the facilities in isolation: “Maternal parity affects neonatal survival rate in a colony of captive bred baboons (Papio hamadryas)” (2007) addressed the baboon colony in Wallacia NSW and divulged some disturbing incidents of baby baboon deaths such as an incident where one body torn in two, another body was too decomposed to establish the cause of death and yet another where a baboon’s body was not even found. It would be very interesting to know whether these studies have been followed up to determine whether conditions for these animals have improved, as such reports certainly give us little confidence that the facilities are “outstanding” or ensure ‘highest standards’ are met. Such information has continually proven difficult if not impossible to obtain.

Furthermore, despite assurance that primates are kept in world class facilities, Humane Research Australia has unveiled damning information about the unexpected deaths of primates in Australia, over the past four years:

• A female macaque found bloodied and dead in a barrel outside.
• A female macaque found in her cage barely able to move. Staff attempted to recover her with fluids and warmth but she died about 1.5 hours later.
• A female marmoset found listless and bleeding from her bowel. After being treated and placed in a humidicrib she began gasping for breath and died.
• A male marmoset found listless with shallow breathing and vomiting clear foamy liquid. The vet was called for treatment but the marmoset died 30 minutes later.
   

Baboons (just like Albert and  his wives) have been used to test radioactive substances, and pregnancy hypertension at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and subjected to preeclampsia experiments and had shoulder tendons cut to investigate the healing process – all funded by Australian taxpayers.

‘Successful’ Testing Examples In Primates

Two examples often touted as success stories (using primates) are the development of the Polio Vaccine and Deep Brain stimulation as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease.  These claims are misrepresentative of the historical records.

The original polio vaccine successfully tested in monkeys resulted in numerous human deaths and paralysis when translated.   Further experiments (also on monkeys) led to development of a nasal treatment which caused permanent olfactory damage to children.  

Then in 1941, Dr Albert Sabin decided to study human autopsies to disprove the nasal theory and stated: “…prevention was long delayed by the erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease based on misleading experimental models of the disease in monkeys”.    [We now know that Polio is contracted through the digestinal tract in humans whereas in monkeys, it’s contracted through the respiratory system.]  

Finally, in 1949, Nobel Laureate John Enders grew the virus in tissue cultures. Unfortunately he did however use monkey tissue which then resulted in a virus (SV4O) jumping the species barrier.   Thankfully it is now grown in human cell culture and could have been originally thereby saving countless lives and leading to a far more expeditious medical solution for humanity.

More recently, deep brain stimulation for sufferers of Parkinson’s disease is often credited to the cruel work with MPTP (1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine) treated monkeys, developed after the serendipitous discovery of symptoms of Parkinsonism in young drug addicts exposed to the narcotic contaminant.   Yet the practice has actually been used to treat sufferers since the 1940’s - many years before the first ever description of the MPTP-primate model ever existed.

In summary, primates have been used throughout history in crude and invasive experiments, but the fact that they were used in the process does not imply nor logically follow that they were a necessary part of the development of medical treatments.