The UW’s confinement and use of primates in experiments repeatedly leads to incidents in which animals are injured and die (in addition to all the injuries and deaths that are planned as part of experiments), making the UW a frequent violator of the federal Animal Welfare Act. 

Federal Animal Welfare Violations for 2026 include:

• Staff saw a limp newborn monkey in the arms of their mother, assumed the baby to be dead, and placed them in a biohazard bag in a cooler. About an hour later, staff retrieved the baby for a necropsy and discovered the baby was still breathing. The baby was then euthanized, and the necropsy revealed the baby had suffered a difficult birth, skull/brain trauma, and lack of nursing.

Federal Animal Welfare Violations for 2025 include:

• During an intracranial injection surgery on a monkey, the software in a robotic arm malfunctioned and made uncontrolled movements. The monkey suffered a seizure during recovery and did not have full use of the left side of their body for a few weeks. Three weeks after the botched surgery, experimenters performed a second surgery. The monkey did not recover from anesthesia and was euthanized. The necropsy report showed a blood clot at the monkey’s brain stem and hemorrhage at the base of the brain.
• Despite concerns from an attending veterinarian, the IACUC approved the shipment of an elderly monkey across the country without following established procedures. The monkey died.
• Experimenters gave the wrong strain of a virus to ten monkeys over the course of two years, which they realized when one of the monkeys reached the point of being euthanized at three days instead of the planned five days after administration and they tested the strain type.

Federal Animal Welfare Violations for 2024 include:

• Experimenters subjected a monkey to an x-ray procedure to observe swallowing more times than approved in the protocol (three times a week for four weeks), and the monkey experienced radiation toxicity with symptoms.
• Two monkeys escaped their cages, leading to four monkeys sustaining injuries; three of them had to be sedated for wound treatment.
• Experimenters performed a spinal tap on a monkey without providing them with the required pain reliever.

Federal Animal Welfare Violations for 2023 include:

• Experimenters used an anesthesia machine that did not work correctly with the circuit attached to it, which caused the machine to malfunction and quickly develop pressure in the tubing. The machine was used for a monkey who was experiencing complications during anesthesia, and the machine killed the monkey with the rapid pressure into the lungs. Barotrauma was the cause of death.
• A supervisor stepped away while a new trainee was performing a procedure to place a recording device on a monkey’s brain. The trainee damaged brain tissue, and the monkey exhibited neurological impairment within minutes.
• No one gave a monkey his daily ration of water during an experiment that used water regulation as part of manipulating monkeys to perform behavioral tasks.
• At five different times during July, for periods of four to over nine hours, the temperature in a room holding seven monkeys was over 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

Federal Animal Welfare Violations for 2021 include:

• On three different days in July, a primate room with 14 – 15 monkeys reached temperatures over 85 degrees Fahrenheit for periods of four to seven hours.
• In a building holding 226 monkeys, the ceiling light coverings for every primate enclosure contained a significant amount of rodent feces, and many places on the floor also had rodent feces.
• Staff left a monkey in a trapping run for over twelve hours without access to food or water.
• Two monkeys escaped a cage when one of them broke the locks. Seven monkeys sustained injuries.

Federal Animal Welfare Violations for 2020 include:

• A one-year-old monkey escaped her cage through a feeder opening that staff had neglected to lock. She climbed onto another cage, and the monkey in it pulled her arm through the 1×1 mesh enclosure. She sustained multiple injuries and had to have her arm amputated.

Visit here to view information about additional violations since 2020, as well as links to the USDA Inspection Reports that detail the incidents.

These violations of the Animal Welfare Act also show noncompliance with the Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Animals and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals under the federal Health Research Extension Act of 1985. All institutions that receive funding from the NIH for experiments on vertebrate animals are supposed to be in compliance.

Primate Breeding and Sales

In addition to subjecting primates to experiments at the UW, the WaNPRC also breeds and sells primates to other institutions, including facilities run by the federal government. An investigation by The Arizona Republic into the WaNPRC breeding facility in Mesa, AZ, revealed rampant disease among the pigtail macaques. These primates are then sold and shipped around the country, spreading diseases that are transmissible to humans and cause suffering to the primates.

When primates have already been used in experiments or some other factor has diminished their “value” in the research industry, the primates may be sold at a discount rate. From birth to death (and beyond, when pieces of their tissue are sold), every primate of the WaNPRC has a dollar amount attached to them.

The University of Washington is involved in a variety of experiments on animals. Examples include:

Brain experiments: Experiments on the brain are a common type of animal research. These experiments often involve surgically cutting into the skulls of animals to access the brain (“craniotomies”), surgically implanting electrodes into the animals’ brains, and other types of surgeries. Specific studies include:

• Oxygen deprivation of baby macaques: One study involved depriving baby macaques of oxygen while they were still fetuses by clamping their umbilical cords, delivering the baby macaques early which required them to be resuscitated, surgically implanting electrodes into their scalps, further depriving them of oxygen for the first three days of their lives, and then euthanizing the macaques when they were eight days old (McAdams et al., 2017).
• Implantation of electrodes in macaques’ brains: One study involved surgically implanting electrodes into macaques’ brains, and then monitoring their brains while the macaques were forced to perform a visual tracking task (Shushruth et al., 2018).
• Electrical stimulation of macaques’ brains: One study involved surgically opening the skulls of macaques, inserting electrodes into their skulls, and applying beta stimulation to the outer layer of the macaques’ brains (Zanos et al., 2018).
• Giving macaques strokes: One study involved giving macaques strokes by intravenously injecting them with a special light-sensitive chemical, and then opening their skulls and activating the chemical with light which caused brain tissue to be destroyed, thereby giving the macaques strokes (Kahteeb et al., 2019).

Pregnancy experiments: Researchers often use primates and other animals in studies to study pregnancy. These studies are often surgically invasive to both the mother and fetus. Specific studies include:

• Artificially enlarging the uteri of pregnant macaques: One study involved studying uterine overdistension, which is a condition during pregnancy when the uterus is larger than normal due to amniotic fluid or a large baby. Researchers induced uterine overdistension in six pregnant macaques by implanting balloons inside the macaques’ uteri, which caused three of the six macaques to have preterm labor. The baby macaques were then delivered by cesarean section and euthanized (Waldorf et al., 2015).

Eye and vision experiments: Some experiments involve studying the eyes of animals, which often involve surgery. Specific studies include:

• Giving macaques lazy eye (amblyopia): One study involved giving macaques lazy eye by surgically cutting the retinal muscles of some macaques, and forcing other macaques to wear contact lenses which induced lazy eye (Pham et al., 2018).
• Surgically cutting out and modifying monkeys’ eyes: One study involved researching how macaques perceived color, and involved removing the eyes of anesthetized monkeys and then cutting out several parts of the eyes in order to study them (Wool et al., 2018).