We all operate in the same way. WRPRC Director, Joe Kemnitz

MADISON, Wisc. and PORTLAND, Ore. -- Joseph Kemnitz, director of the National Institutes of Health-sponsored Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has claimed that monkeys at his facility almost never harm themselves. But documents obtained by the Primate Freedom Project indicate otherwise.

Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center (WRPRC) officials have resisted supplying documents to members of the public, as required by Wisconsin open records laws and the federal Freedom of Information Act, and have even gone so far as to insinuate that encouraging others to seek information on the monkeys it holds and experiments on may be illegal. In spite of this, the Primate Freedom Project has acquired a few records from a few monkeys held at Kemnitz's institution. The records are cryptic and typically brief, usually totaling three or four pages. (Similar requests to other institutions such as the California Regional Primate Research Center can result in a hundred or more pages of documentation.) Of the very many requests for information, WRPRC has responded to only a handful.

Bite wounds do not seem to be rare at WRPRC, though whether self-inflicted or not is not specified in the few sparse records released by WRPRC. One particular record seems to have been released accidentally. This is a detailed account of monkey r95100's experience at WRPRC.

On February 5,1999, r95100 was reported to have "self-inflicted skin lesions." Another note from February 5 states: "Closed with surgical glue; lacerations on calf - possible self-biter; areas of over-grooming."

April 13, 1999: "Self trauma - right and left arms - over biceps, muscles and under left arm. Label cage 'self biter' and reduce room stress or pre-treat with diazapam [Valium]."

According to WRPRC documents, on June 6, 2000, nearly five years old, r95100 was shipped to the University of Baltimore. The record noted: "History - diarrhea, rectal prolapse, inappropriate (self-directed) behavior, 2 - 3 cm healed lesions on inner aspect of right and left arms; very thin pelage - legs and tail; overgroomed; no history of SIV infection; wt.=5.75 kg."

Kemnitz used r95100 in his own project: "DNA Profiling of Primates Used in Biomedical Research."

Kemnitz has made spurious claims in the past. In 1997, a whistle blower provided internal documents from WRPRC that proved unequivocally that WRPRC had been hiding the fact that they had secretly removed over 200 monkeys from the county zoo and sold them to labs throughout the country as well as killed them in WRPRC's own labs. This was a direct violation of agreements WRPRC had signed with the local county government that no monkeys from the zoo would ever be harmed in biomedical research.

When first contacted about one, then another of these protected monkeys, Kemnitz made the claim that it was these two monkeys' "special genetic characteristics" that allowed the Center to experiment on and kill them. When confronted with the other 199 records, Kemnitz quickly changed his story. Further, those familiar with the zoo monkeys noted that the large number of males and females living together there made any claim of knowledge regarding any of the offspring's genetic characteristics very unlikely.

Kemnitz is known to have misled county officials again in 1997/98 when supporting the notion that keeping any rhesus monkeys at the zoo would place the public at great risk of contracting a monkey virus.

Kemnitz is known to have misled the public in 1997/98 with the claim that the University of Wisconsin was seeking to place the monkeys in question in a sanctuary, when he was secretly seeking laboratories that would take the monkeys for experimental use.

Kemnitz is known to have misled the public with the claim that the monkeys would be protected from harmful experiments by the same agreement with the county (that he violated) once they were at the Tulane Regional Primate Research Center.

As far as is known, the only honest statement made by Kemnitz concerning the operations of his facility was printed in the March 1998, The Progressive, in a comment he made concerning the entire NIH Regional Primate Research Center System: "We all operate in the same way."

Kemnitz told a reporter from the Willamette Week newspaper in Portland, Oregon that monkeys at WRPRC almost never bite themselves. The December 26, 2001, Willamette Week story, recounts serious problems at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center (ORPRC) exposed by a whistle-blower and through investigative reporting.

The industry grudgingly admits that at least 10 percent of the monkeys in the nation's labs engage in self-injurious behavior and inflict such serious self-wounding that medical treatment is required. If the monkeys at Joe Kemnitz's WRPRC are, in fact, chewing themselves only rarely, then Kemnitz should release the daily care logs for all the animals and prove it is so. His history of lying makes any claim hugely suspect without clear evidence to the contrary.

For more on WRPRC visit:

http://www.primatefreedom.com/centers/wisconexptype.html
http://www.primatefreedom.com/centers/wisconupdate1.html
http://www.primatefreedom.com/tagreports/r97041.html
http://www.primatefreedom.com/tagreports/r95100.html
http://cepe.enviroweb.org/The_Vilas_Debacle.html
http://cepe.enviroweb.org/WRPRCpropaganda.html
http://cepe.enviroweb.org/WILyingScum.html