<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In September 1981 police raided the Institute for Behavioral Research (Silver Spring, Maryland, USA) seizing a number of macaque monkeys in response to accusations of animal cruelty against the neuroscientist Edward Taub. Over the following decade a volatile battle was fought as Taub, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the nascent animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), contested the claims and decided the monkeys’ fate. In spite of the monkeys having been surgically altered so as to be incapable of feeling pain a loose alliance of veterinarians, ethologists and animal advocates argued that they nonetheless suffered. Whilst this episode is often seen as a polarized confrontation between science and society, this paper argues that the Silver Spring monkey controversy saw two historically distinct cultures of laboratory animal care meet resulting in the development of new approaches to animal welfare in biomedical science.</p></abstract>

In September 1981 police raided the Institute for Behavioral Research (Silver Spring, Maryland, USA) seizing a number of macaque monkeys in response to accusations of animal cruelty against the neuroscientist Edward Taub. Over the following decade a volatile battle was fought as Taub, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the nascent animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), contested the claims and decided the monkeys’ fate. In spite of the monkeys having been surgically altered so as to be incapable of feeling pain a loose alliance of veterinarians, ethologists and animal advocates argued that they nonetheless suffered. Whilst this episode is often seen as a polarized confrontation between science and society, this paper argues that the Silver Spring monkey controversy saw two historically distinct cultures of laboratory animal care meet resulting in the development of new approaches to animal welfare in biomedical science.

The Silver Spring monkey controversy: changing cultures of care in twentieth-century laboratory animal research

Centre for the History of Science Technology and Medicine (CHSTM) Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

HoST - Journal  of History of Science and Technology

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

In September 1981 police raided the Institute for Behavioral Research (Silver Spring, Maryland, USA) seizing a number of macaque monkeys in response to...

The Silver Spring monkey controversy: changing cultures of care in twentieth-century laboratory animal research

Published Online: Nov 15, 2019

Page range: 31 - 59

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/host-2019-0012

Keywords
laboratory, animal, welfare, ethics, neuroscience

© 2019 Robert G. W. Kirk, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Silver Spring monkey controversy: changing cultures of care in twentieth-century laboratory animal research

Published Online: Nov 15, 2019

Page range: 31 - 59

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/host-2019-0012

Keywordslaboratory, animal, welfare, ethics, neuroscience

© 2019 Robert G. W. Kirk, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
laboratory, animal, welfare, ethics, neuroscience