Colombian monkeys seized from NIH-funded lab

Victory! Last Animals Rescued From NIH-Funded Colombian Hellhole Exposed by PETA

Update (January 19, 2024): Wonderful news! Colombia’s environmental agency Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca (CVC) fined experimenters Sócrates Herrera and Myriam Arévalo more than $281,000 after finding them responsible for lacking the necessary permits to capture, confine and experiment with monkeys. The CVC’s ruling also held that “cruelty to animals” – a crime whose investigation and prosecution is not within the CVC’s jurisdiction – had been committed and that the monkeys rescued from the dilapidated facility will not return to their abusers. Now the Special Prosecutor for Animal Cruelty must bring charges against these fraudulent and cruel subjects!

Update (July 5, 2023): VICTORY! Thanks to PETA’s damning and detailed 18-month investigation, the National Institutes of Health revoked the eligibility of laboratories run by the notorious experimenters Sócrates Herrera and Myriam Arévalo to receive money from the agency. These torture chambers disguised as science centers should never have been funded with a single cent of US tax dollars – let alone millions – in the first place. Read more.

Update (May 23, 2023): GOOD NEWS! Colombia’s environmental agency, the Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca, has just charged the ice cream users at the center of PETA’s damning 18-month investigation with the following crimes:

  • Not having the necessary permit to catch squirrel monkeys
  • Not having the necessary permission to experiment on monkeys
  • Not having the necessary permission to use animals or obtain any product from them
  • Committing “harm to wildlife”

This welcome development follows a Colombian Supreme Court ruling last month that upheld a lower court decision allowing authorities to continue caring for the 108 small monkeys rescued from this torture facility. In ruling against the experimenters, the court stated that continuing to experiment on monkeys for years without having the necessary permits was “completely unjustified.” It is too totally indefensible that the National Institutes of Health has not done its job and apparently continues to fund these api users.

The criminal investigation by the Colombian Office of the Attorney General is ongoing.

Urge the agency to stop funding the trial leaders NOW by taking action below!

Update (April 28, 2023): A court in Colombia has just upheld a lower court ruling allowing authorities to continue caring for the 108 small monkeys rescued from this torture facility. In ruling against the experimenters, the court stated that continuing to experiment on monkeys for years without having the necessary permits was “completely unjustified.” It is also completely unjustified that the National Institutes of Health has not done its job and apparently continues to fund these api users. Call on the agency to stop funding them NOW by taking action below!

Update (April 4, 2023): ANOTHER WIN! Yesterday, local authorities seized 180 mice – the only remaining animals still imprisoned at the Caucaseco Scientific Research Center, the filthy, dilapidated torture facility exposed by PETA. The mice, which would have been used in experiments funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), are now recovering at the newly opened Animal Welfare Center in Cali, Colombia.

Witnesses say that before their rescue, the mice lacked sufficient water, and our investigation showed that some had resorted to cannibalism. Former employees claim that the mouse population exploded because experimenters had failed to separate males from females. As a result, up to 30 mice were collected in boxes designed for a maximum of five.

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