UMass monkey lab records to go public after legal battle with PETA (2025)

After years of fighting over the use of animals for research, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have settled a 2022 public records lawsuit.

In a September 2022 lawsuit, filed in a Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston, PETA has said that UMass researchers perform experiments that mistreat animals and house creatures, including marmoset monkeys and hamsters, in cramped and inhumane conditions.

The university maintains that the animal welfare organization’s assertions misrepresent its laboratories and research.

Before the lawsuit, PETA had filed three public records requests over 16 months, but UMass did not produce appropriate materials as mandated by state records law, PETA claimed. The organization asked a judge to order UMass to turn over the requested records.

More than two years later, the two organizations have settled.

PETA told MassLive it will receive all videos, photos and other documentation about the experiments that were previously withheld as a result of the settlement. The university will also pay PETA $50,000 for legal fees.

On Tuesday, both sides submitted a dismissal of the lawsuit because of the settlement, court records show.

“UMass harmed small monkeys in pointless experiments and then tried to hide what it was doing by flouting open records laws,” PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo said in a statement. “There’s no scientific reason to keep this wasteful, abusive laboratory open another minute — its federal funding should be cut now.”

PETA expects the documentation to include the names of those currently serving on the university’s institutional animal care and use committee, according to the settlement.

“The committee reviews, approves or rejects experiments on animals and is responsible for ensuring adherence to animal protection laws and regulations,” PETA explained.

UMass did not immediately respond to MassLive’s request for comment.

The focus of PETA’s inquiry was experiments that UMass said aim to better understand Alzheimer’s disease by studying marmosets.

The monkeys’ short lifespans — about a decade — and cognitive decline with age allow researchers to track brain function over a manageable timeline, compared to the decades it would take to study a human across their whole life.

UMass’ experiments gauge cognitive functions in the marmosets by asking them to identify shapes and odors and solve tests using fine motor skills. The researchers also track the monkeys’ sleep, according to an informational webpage organized by lead A licensed veterinarian conducts the surgery.

PETA has levied an assortment of accusations against UMass concerning the research — that experimenters “drill into [marmosets] skulls and implant electrodes,” that they “cut out [monkeys] ovaries and heat the animals with hand warmers” and that they keep monkeys in solitary confinement.

UMass and lead UMass researcher Agnès Lacreuse dispute each of these complaints.

The researchers implant a “small telemeter” on the monkeys’ heads, just under the skin, to record brain activity, Lacreuse said. A licensed veterinarian conducts the surgery, she said, and allows researchers to track monkeys’ sleep without disturbing them.

Lacreuse’s website acknowledged neutering and spaying the animals, which for female marmosets involves removing their ovaries. The process is the same as with a house cat or pet dog, Lacreuse said, and the animals are given appropriate anesthetics and medications during the surgery conducted by a veterinarian.

The monkeys are also heated with hand warmers to simulate the symptoms of menopause, a process they do not go through naturally. While PETA has questioned the necessity and humanity of the experiment, Lacreuse said that understanding marmosets’ ability to regulate their body temperature could prove key to understanding the symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes.

Part of the research involves studying women’s health to understand why women make up two-thirds of Alzheimer’s cases, Lacreuse said.

PETA began challenging the research for over a year before the public records lawsuit.

UMass, in denying the release of portions of the records, claimed some of the experiments constituted proprietary information the university was entitled to protect. The school also said releasing images of researchers and others involved in supervising animal research could jeopardize their safety.

In 2021, PETA members protested at the center of the UMass campus alongside Massachusetts-born actor Casey Affleck, a longtime supporter of the organization.

“You don’t have to be a scientist to know right from wrong,” Affleck previously said. “The bottom line is, the animals used here in these unnecessary and cruel experiments suffer. That should be enough to tell us that we have to find another way to do this research.”

In past years, PETA has also fought UMass on animal research by other UMass professors. The organization claimed one researcher, Melinda Novak, of UMass’ department of psychological and brain sciences, was involved in inducing self-injurious behavior in monkeys. PETA Vice President Alka Chandna described the research in a statement to the Daily Hampshire Gazette as “creating trauma simply to study it.”

Novak said her goal was to study the conditions of monkeys living in research centers to identify and prevent self-harming behaviors. The labs she examined were not at UMass, and the animals were already engaging in worrying behavior — pacing, pulling out hair, poking their own eyes — before the study began, she said.

“There was no experiment here,” Novak told the Gazette, “and I have never, ever, ever in my entire life ever run a project to make animals have these behavior problems, then somehow study it.”

After another years-long legal battle, UMass agreed in 2020 to redact records and videos of Novak’s research and turn them over to PETA. The organization published portions of the records it received.

MassLive reporter Will Katcher contributed to this reporting.