Activists Protest Company's Plan To Test Monkeys

A research company in Pasadena, CA is feeling the wrath of an animal rights group for a series of radiation tests it’s conducting on 32 monkeys. The company wants to determine the effects of potentially lethal doses of radiation on humans after a nuclear disaster.

ChromoLogic, a private diagnostic technology research company is developing a machine to test humans for levels of radiation poisoning after being exposed to a nuclear event such as Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster that occurred in March 2011. On Monday the company began testing 32 Rhesus monkeys for the project.

Animal activists from Stop Animal Exploitation Now! (SAEN) staged a protest outside ChromoLogic’s Pasadena office to halt the tests after a whistleblower leaked they would begin this week.

“My goal is to get as many people to know what’s going on and to stop this,” said Josh Gutier, who attended the protest.

Julia MacKenzie, SAEN’s L.A. representative said, “I object to them using animals in research and wasting taxpayers’ money.”

ChromoLogic’s CEO Naresh Menon said the project was mandated by congress is being funded with $8 million from the federal government. The intent is to produce “an important piece of technology for determining how to treat people who have been poisoned by radiation.”

Menon said the company has been conducting non-animal research for the past two years, but must now move onto animals.

“We are looking at people who are receiving potentially lethal doses of radiation, and non-human primates are the only model available to test it on,” said Menon.

The 32 monkeys are being held at a facility in Montreal, Canada and will be tested there.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

antonia m.

11:18PM PDT on Mar 11, 2012

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."
-Desmond Tutu

send a green star

Hope S.

8:46AM PST on Jan 19, 2012

Totally unnecessary! When are we going to ban these abusive practices on animals when we already know what is lethal or damaging to animals and humans? The "scientists" using these methods must be psychopaths because no normal person would do this "work."

Sheri D.

6:07AM PST on Jan 19, 2012

Use that $8 million to study ways to prevent nuclear disaster instead of exposing monkeys to radiation!!!

Quanta K.

2:20AM PST on Jan 19, 2012

Thanks

Nimue P.

7:51PM PST on Jan 18, 2012

I mean the company, not the protestors! Go, protestors! :)

7:50PM PST on Jan 18, 2012

Morons.

Past Member .

10:31AM PST on Jan 4, 2012

What stupidity. Why test on animals that are not our biological response, while there are so many people spent in Japan? it is upon them the need to find solutions because the radiation is real and not imposed.

Linda J.

8:14AM PST on Jan 4, 2012

America's prisons I beleive are full to bursting like everywhere else in the world, so how about using murderers, rapists, animal abusers and any other low life in these tests and maybe they might get more positive results from testing on humans instead of animals.

Silvia G.

10:06AM PST on Jan 3, 2012

Do they have to pay for our mistakes? Do we have to test on them because of a hypothetical disaster we ourselves created? No way!!

Glenda L.

5:23AM PST on Jan 2, 2012

There's got to be another way!!