Harvard’s primate center probed for deaths of shipped monkeys

Source: Boston Globe

By Carolyn Y. Johnson

Harvard’s New England Primate Research Center, the long-running research institution set to shut down at the end of May, is being investigated by the US Department of Agriculture after a half dozen of the center’s cotton-top tamarins died two days after arriving at the Oregon Zoo last May.

The agency disclosed the investigation after it was asked whether it would take action after the Globe revealed this week that a dozen dehydrated monkeys were found dead or euthanized for poor health between 1999 and 2011.

“We cannot provide any specific information about Harvard’s New England Primate Research Center because there is an open investigation into the Center,” USDA spokeswoman Tanika Whittington wrote in an e-mail.

A Harvard Medical School spokeswoman said the investigation was triggered by the shipment of nine tamarin monkeys from the primate center to the Oregon Zoo last May that was first reported by news media in Oregon last year. Six of the monkeys died shortly after arriving May 22.

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GLOBE FILE/1999
Harvard’s New England Primate Center.


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