Monkey Business: The Disturbing Case That Launched the Animal Rights Movement

by Kathy Snow Guillermo

The case that launched the animal rights movement. Working undercover at a research laboratory in 1981, Alex Pacheco's discoveries led to the first criminal prosecution for animal cruelty against a medical researcher.

Genres: Animals

254 pages, Hardcover

First published September 9, 1993

Reviews

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book in just a few days. I was surprised to learn more about the history of the Animal Rights movement in the U.S. and how it really took off as a result of experiments that were going on right here in the DC area. It was, of course, a frustrating and sad account because- as expected- there were countless setbacks from the legal system and such unnecessary retaliation from animal researchers. It made me embarassed to be a part of the APA and to be affiliated (via other projects I've worked on) with NIH.

Also, having read the work of Carol J Adams (the pornography of meat) and other feminist critiques of both the meat industry *and* PETA, I was really happy to read about the founders of PETA and the unbelievable amount of personal sacrifice, time, and money they have invested on behalf of animals since the early 1980s... Whatever flaws they may currently be accused of having- no one can say that there heart has not always been in the right place. This book introduced me to two new heros- Ingrid N. and Alex P.

Those interested in animal rights- specifically the rights of animals used for "research" would find this book to be an important addition to their animal rights library.

Because it is old and never as popular as, say, Animal Liberation, you can also find it very cheap. My copy was $1

[Claire Aiken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, first review. I was looking through my old diary and found an entry about this book. Here is what I said
"...it is really a great book. It's about the Silver Springs monkey case, the first case of laboratory animal cruelty to be carried out. I guess I didn't get much done today, I've been reading for hours..."

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EXCELLENT RECOUNTING OF THE CASE/BACKGROUND THAT LAUNCHED PETA

Kathy Snow Guillermo works for PETA. She wrote in the Introduction to this 1993 book, “Justice Thurgood Marshall delivered the ruling on May 20, 1991… Attorneys for both sides---the National Institutes of Health and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA]---waited anxiously… A ruling in PETA’s favor would not only put the powerful government agency on trial, but would clear the way for penetration of the legal shield surrounding the $10 billion world of federally funded medical research… The case began … when a college student named Alex Pacheco took a volunteer job at a primate research laboratory… The subsequent arrest of an NIH grant recipient on animal cruelty charges jolted the animal experimentation community out of its sleepy complacency…

“[M]ost significantly, the sad story of the Silver Spring Monkeys would catapult the newly-formed [PETA] out of obscurity. PETA grabbed the opportunity and … launched a movement that would add the words ‘animal rights’ to the American vocabulary. PETA condemned not only painful research on animals, it denounced all experimentation on animals, regardless of the reason. PETA also protested the use of animals for food, for clothing and for entertainment such as circuses and traveling zoo shows… But the opponents of animals rights were growing more vocal, too… Through it all, the Silver Spring Monkeys would remain the most important symbol of the growing animal rights movement.”

She recounts, “[Alex Pacheco] applied for a job at the Institute for Behavioral Research [IBR] because he wanted to argue his case against animal experimentation from an informed position. What he saw in IBR’s monkey room, though, was closer to a nightmare than a research laboratory. The deafening scream of 17 frenzied primates assaulted Pacheo … Bloody stumps poked through the wire cages and it took him a moment to realize these had once been fingers. Oozing untreated wounds covered the limbs and torsos of many of the monkeys… the room was unventilated… More than two dozen individual cages were crammed into the tiny square space measuring only 15 feet across and deep… several inches of waste loaded the pans beneath… How, Pacheco wondered, could any relevant experimental data come from this pathetic group of maimed creatures?” (Pg. 13-14)

Pacheco “was frustrated that he didn’t have a plan to rescue the macaques. He considered just taking them---backing up a van one night and driving away with them. But … this course of action wouldn’t stop [IBR] from buying another colony of monkeys and starting over.” (Pg. 23)

She recounts how in 1980 Pacheco met Ingrid Newkirk: “he presented her with a copy of [Peter Singer’s book] ‘Animal Liberation.’ She was already a vegetarian… But until she read Singer’s book, she had never been able to express what she intuitively felt to be true, that animals … weren’t on earth simply for humans to use…. [Pacheco] did poke fun at her for not having thought the philosophy through already. ‘If you like animals,’ he would ask, ‘how can you wear leather?’ Newkirk began to examine her life… In March of 1980, she and Pacheco began People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals…” (Pg. 34)

Third-year medical student Ronnie Hawkins was invited to work at IBR, and she eventually mused, “We say we experiment on animals to help humans… and we use monkeys because they’re so like people. But if they are so like us, why do we leave them out of our moral code?” (Pg. 49)

Newkirk and Pacheco “had begun to realize this case had other ramifications…this exclusive grant-dependent world would never again be quite as invulnerable once Taub’s research subjects were seized…. IBR would be the first laboratory ever raided by police…Taub [its Director] would be the first animal experimenter ever charged with cruelty. But he wouldn’t be the last held accountable for what he did to the animals in his care.” (Pg. 55)

She recounts, “In Great Britain, a secret group known as the Animal Liberation Front [ALF] had for years raided laboratories where inhumane experiments were conducted… most people on this side of the Atlantic had never heard of the British ALF and there was nothing comparable to it in the United States---until the Silver Spring Monkeys disappeared from Rockville… the removal of the monkeys was their first act. Direct action of this sort was unheard of in America… During the next decade, the American Animal Liberation Front broke into more than 100 laboratories and transported thousands of animals to safety… Though the ALF injured neither human nor animal during their raids, they did destroy equipment … and spray-painted slogans on laboratory walls. The FBI eventually listed the ALF as a ‘terrorist’ group and pursued the shadowy figures with an increasing intensity.” (Pg. 69-70)

After the IBR case proceeded, “the damage had already been done. A rift had opened between the scientific community and the public because Pacheco, Newkirk and PETA, with the state of Maryland’s help, had … proven, in a court of law, that animal abuse occurred in a laboratory. No other animal protection organization had so effectively challenged the scientific elite. Before the Silver Spring Monkeys case, critics of experimentation could be written off as ‘bunny-hugging softies’; now, with the legitimacy conferred on them by a judge’s decision, animal activists had the attention of the public as never before. Pacheco and Newkirk didn’t waste the opportunity. The rift between scientists and taxpayers would continue to widen during the next decade as PETA uncovered case after case of abuse.” (Pg. 115-116)

She observes, “Pacheco’s work at IBR was the forerunner or what was to become PETA’s hallmark---undercover investigations. In the next decade, PETA employees would work as laboratory technicians, slaughterhouse workers and animal caretakers, documenting and releasing information that would change the way people perceived the meat and medical industries in this country… Experimenters who had thought that the Silver Spring Monkeys case was a one-of-a-kind occurrence were rapidly learning otherwise.” (Pg. 131)

She notes, “Congress was watching… amendments to the inadequate Animal Welfare Act were passed that required federally funded animal laboratories to set up an animal care and use committee to review every research protocol… Experimenters using primates were also required to provide for the animals’ psychological welfare. Many scientists tried to poke fun at this… But they could not ignore the changing sentiment in the United States over the use of animals, and it frightened them.” (Pg. 145)

PETA lawyer Margaret Woodward “was shocked by the lengths the government would go in order to succeed. They staunchly denied the existence of documents, only to produce them in court once Woodward had obtained them through different sources… Worst of all, they seemed to care nothing about the monkeys themselves or about maintaining the integrity of science… If the primates’ lives had to be sacrificed to prevent PETA from winning a tactical victory, they apparently had not pangs of conscience…. Woodward came to the conclusion that NIH officials had dug themselves into a hole they couldn’t get out of---they had lied to congress, to the Administration and to the public. Now they had to fend off any inquiry that this new lawsuit mandated.” (Pg. 224)

She concludes, “[PETA] has continued to flourish… PETA has continued to conduct undercover investigations and to release to the public copies of materials taken by the Animal Liberation Front during its break-ins… Alex Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk continue to battle government agencies…” (Pg. 242)

This very well-written book will be of great interest to those studying the animal welfare and animal rights movement.

[Peacegal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a riveting account of the “Silver Springs Monkey Case”---the first-ever conviction of an animal researcher for animal cruelty. Edward Taub’s facility was so substandard, his treatment of the animals so poor, that one would think his colleagues would be the first to condemn, rather than defend, him. Yet defend they did, even when the evidence against Taub was so overwhelming it seemed to defy common sense.

While I don’t think the Silver Springs Monkey Case launched the animal rights cause—Merritt Clifton of Animal People News has meticulously documented the movement’s far older origins—one could rightly argue that case brought about a new burst of interest in our duties toward other beings. One element I found especially interesting was how many personalities who are now well known in the humane cause today got their start in this case.

The author writes in an informative fashion, detached enough that readers can fully understand the case and the many controversies surrounding it.

This should be required reading for anyone interested in making legal progress on behalf of animals, as well as anyone who assumes the National Institutes of Health has any commitment at all toward the welfare of laboratory animals. Despite their feel-good public relations lines, the NIH’s appalling behavior toward this small group of severely abused animals paints a far different image.