Animal testing lab closure exposes “pointless cruelty” in women’s health research

A PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) campaign has shut down menopause experiments on marmosets at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass-Amherst) laboratory of Agnès Lacreuse, US. The animal rights organization says Lacreuse spent over 10 years performing “scientifically-flawed” experiments on marmosets. These animals do not experience menopause.

At UMass-Amherst, experimenters zip-tied the small monkeys into restraining devices, drilled into their skulls, and implanted electrodes. The non-human animals had their necks cut open to expose muscle and electrode leads threaded from the scalp and neck to the abdomen. 

Experimenters cut out the monkeys’ ovaries and heated them with hand warmers to mimic “hot flashes.” Following the experiments, the marmosets were killed and dissected.

PETA says it has ended the “torment” of marmosets and the “waste” of money. The lab received more than US$6 million in federal funding. 

“While it is gratifying that Lacreuse’s marmoset laboratory has closed, the invasive, deadly, and scientifically worthless experiments conducted there should never have been funded in the first place — nor should they have been approved by the university’s oversight body. That they were both funded and approved is a damning indictment of a system that sees animals’ lives as expendable,” PETA head of Science Policy, Dr. Julia Baines, tells Personal Care Insights.

“When society at large fails to reckon with the profound ethical and moral costs of such experiments, the cycle continues, perpetuating violence, misery, and suffering for animals trapped in laboratories. Even for those unmoved by the cruelty, the facts are clear: experiments on animals have a dismal track record of producing cures and treatments for humans.”

A message on the laboratory’s website announced its closure on July 31.

“Pointless” science

PETA initially exposed the experiments in 2021 and has since waged an active crusade, including dozens of protests, an ad campaign, lawsuits, disruption of fundraising events, and conferences.

“The complex interplay of age, hormones, genetics, reproductive history, overall physical health, and mental health that shapes menopause-related symptoms in humans cannot be replicated in non-human primates,” explains Baines.

“Marmosets, in particular, differ profoundly from humans in brain size and structure, developmental rate, hormone production and responsiveness, neuroanatomy, and patterns of aging and neurodegeneration, making them an especially poor ‘model’ for studying human menopause or its link to cognitive decline and neurological disease.”

Animal testing for women’s health is deemed ineffective by PETA. Baines says that surgically induced, abrupt “menopause” in captive marmosets ignores the genetic, environmental, and epigenetic influences that shape the human experience. At the same time, marmosets’ short life span and accelerated development make them ill-suited to model the human brain’s long, hormone-sensitive aging process.

“Compounding these flaws, marmosets in laboratories often suffer from abnormal physiological systems and functions, further undermining the validity of any data derived from such experiments.”

The effects of estrogen on cognition, brain structure and function, mood, hot flash frequency and severity, sleep disturbances, and risk for neurodegenerative diseases have been studied in human volunteers or using samples from human volunteers.

“Everything Lacreuse was trying to study in marmoset monkeys can be done using non-animal methods, and most of it has been done already,” adds Baines.

Technologies, such as organ-on-a-chip, are being used to serve as more accurate and detailed models of human neurodegenerative disease and to test the effects of estrogen at the cellular level.

Two wrongs, no rights

PETA filed a complaint in May this year urging the US Department of Agriculture to investigate apparent violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act in the UMass-Amherst laboratory.

It obtained records showing that 10 marmosets confined and killed there spent their final months suffering from gum infections, broken teeth, chronic diarrhea, and other serious health problems, with no indication that staff tried to treat the conditions or investigate the causes. Many monkeys were described as “thin” or “very thin,” some suffered injuries due to improper handling or fights with other monkeys. 

Marmosets are intelligent, sensitive, and complex individuals who can experience a wide range of emotions. However, they are increasingly exploited and killed in laboratories because they are small and friendly and can reproduce rapidly. In nature, marmosets live in cooperative groups, groom each other, huddle, share food, and care for their babies.

Women’s health is historically under-researched and underfunded. Doctors have considered women’s bodies atypical and men’s bodies the “norm.” However, Baines says that using animal experimentation for improved women’s care only passes on the oppression.PETA calls attention to speciesism after shutting down menopause experiments.

She explains that the justifications for dismissing the suffering of other animals and denying them basic rights are rooted in speciesism — a prejudice that closely mirrors the arguments historically used to discount women’s pain and deny them fundamental rights.

“Both rely on arbitrary distinctions to rationalize exploitation, whether based on species or gender. Fighting for women’s health and dignity must go hand-in-hand with ending the institutionalized abuse of female animals, whose bodies are often controlled, manipulated, and commodified,” says Baines.

“Addressing one form of oppression while ignoring the other leaves the underlying systems of exploitation intact. True progress demands confronting both, dismantling the hierarchies that sustain them, and building a more ethical, inclusive future for all sentient beings.”

Animal testing in women’s health

The US National Institutes of Health has awarded money to experimenters who subject non-human animals to tests claiming to help women’s health.

PETA tells us that one such experimenter received US$900,000 to implant steel pipes into monkeys’ heads to induce stress, claiming to study its effect on the menstrual cycle. Another received US$200,000 to force pregnant rabbits to run on treadmills to examine how exercise impacts blood flow. At a Midwestern university, an experimenter was given US$1.6 million for a five-year project in which pregnant rats were exposed to inhalant drugs so the behavior of their pups could be studied.

“Given the longstanding disparity in federal funding for women’s health compared to conditions that predominantly affect men, it is an insult to women everywhere that the small amount of funding available is squandered on such cruel, irrelevant, and scientifically unsound experiments,” says Baines.

“Wasteful projects like those at UMass-Amherst and elsewhere siphon precious taxpayer dollars away from research that could genuinely improve the lives of half the human population.”

Actor Casey Affleck advocated for the closure of the UMass-Amherst lab.Today, non-human animals are used for research into numerous conditions that affect women exclusively or disproportionately — such as endometriosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and cardiovascular disease. Animal experimenters can say their work addresses women’s health by including female animals in their studies, but PETA says these experiments have consistently failed to produce effective new treatments or cures. 

Some scientists suggest that one reason animal experiments fail to translate into human medicine — up to 95% of the time — is that historically, only male animals were used. However, PETA says research shows that sex-related differences in animals do not limit these studies — rather, the fundamental differences between animals and humans do.

“These experiments are justifying additional exploitation and oppression of animals under the false premise that they will somehow undo past exploitation and oppression of humans — it won’t,” says Baines.

“We need increased funding for women’s health and increased inclusivity in clinical trials, but attempts to fix inadequate animal ‘models’ by simply adding more female animals are not the solution.”