~~Oregon To Transition Its Primate Research Center Towards Human-Based Research~~ EDIT: Article Misleading See Comments

Wow, crazy to see happenings in my backyard appear on lemmy

This articles a little misrepresentive of what the OHSU Board of directors actually decided about the fate of the Primate center. The ONPRC is just down the road from here and I watched the board meeting where the decision was made.

The resolution authorizes the creation of a plan to scale down the colony size at the ONPRC with a bunch of pretty important caveats. It's not transitioning to human based approaches, instead it's going to focus on cutting edge NAMS (new approach methodologies) to work toward a future where animal testing is no longer needed.

Some of the caveates:

• The animals cannot be harmed by downsizing. Rhesus Macaques have social structure, family groups, friends, relationships and territory that all impacts their psychological health. Simply uprooting them and shipping them elsewhere would be more harmful than helpful and trade actual animal well-being for a quick political win
• Oregon, and the US as a whole can't lose any unique capabilities the ONPRC provides. Currently that's quite a bit of stuff where non-animal models haven't caught up yet.

Prior to this, there was an attempt to transition the center to an animal sanctuary, which sounds nice, but has significantly less strict requirements for animal care and public accountability. That resolution failed due to being financially unviable.

To be clear nothing is happening yet. The resolution was to investigate, research, and plan for downsizing if possible. No active downsizing is currently happening. Everyone, including the researchers at the center, want to reduce animal testing wherever possible. How that gets done safely is more complex than just "turn off the monkeys"

Disclaimer:

I'm a member of a non-profit trying to battle misinformation around the ONPRC. If you'd like to read more about what's going on, you can find more information or reach out at

https://savescienceoregon.org/