Are Vast Numbers of U.S. Lab Monkeys Being Forced into "Retirement"? The Truth Revealed

A recent article published on the Science website revealed that a large number of laboratory monkeys in the United States are being forced into "retirement."

The report stated that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued an internal directive requiring the termination of all research projects involving monkey experiments by the end of this year. According to the Science website, the affected facilities are several CDC sites in Atlanta, involving approximately two hundred rhesus macaques and related species. These monkeys are primarily used for infectious disease research, such as HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, antiviral agents, hepatitis, etc.

This marks the first time a U.S. government agency has terminated non-human primate research projects since the National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiated the "retirement" plan for laboratory chimpanzees a decade ago. The fate of these monkeys remains uncertain; some may be transferred to primate sanctuaries, while others may be euthanized.

Once the news broke, some websites began extensively reposting it, particularly advocates of so-called "organoid" platforms. They believe the trumpet for "New Approach Methodologies" in scientific research has been sounded, heralding the imminent arrival of the "post-animal era."

Since U.S. President Trump took office, heads of several agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the NIH, have announced plans to reduce reliance on animal testing and intend to invest more funds in organ-on-a-chip technology and other "New Approach Methodologies" research.

Sun Qiang, a researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the Non-Human Primate Research Platform, told Yicai that the U.S. has been continuously promoting so-called "New Approach Methodologies" (NAMs) in recent years. These include organ-on-a-chip, organoids, high-throughput human-derived cells, and computational toxicology, aiming to reduce reliance on animals, particularly primates, in drug safety evaluation and some areas of basic research.