The U.S. Army is gearing up to poison monkeys in a chemical warfare training course in Maryland next week

A shocking training video and veterinary records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act clearly show that these chemical casualty management courses are cruel. A monkey shakes violently from his jaws all the way to his hind legs. A large black tattoo reading “I035” stretches along the shaven left side of his twitching torso. He salivates profusely, and a puddle forms around his face. The U.S. Army is gearing up to poison monkeys in a chemical warfare training course in Maryland next week, and we need your help to stop this cruel exercise before it is too late.  Last week, we asked you to contact Congress, but now we are taking our efforts directly to the U.S. Army and telling its leaders to stop this cruel and unnecessary training today. In the chemical casualty training session, vervet monkeys are injected with a toxic overdose of physostigmine that produces symptoms of a nerve agent attack. Monkeys stop breathing, vomit, defecate, and seize violently while trainees watch. Under anesthesia that can worsen the effects of the attack, monkeys are unable to make alarm calls or otherwise indicate that they are in pain. But medical records and a video obtained by PCRM through the Freedom of Information Act show that these monkeys suffer both during and after the exercise. WARNING: This video portrays intense animal suffering and can be difficult to watch. The use of monkeys for this training is cruel and clinically irrelevant, but the Army refuses to replace animals with available, effective human-based training methods. Even worse, the Army has ordered more monkeys for this course—20 monkeys will be delivered to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland by the end of the month. This is an ideal time to urge the Army to re-evaluate the utility of this protocol. Please call and e-mail Army medical leaders today and tell them to halt the use of monkeys in this exercise before next week. Thank you for your support on this urgent matter. Sincerely, Elizabeth Kucinich Director of Government Affairs e-mail your members of Congress today and let them know that these monkeys should be replaced by superior, human-based training methods, and that the upcoming delivery of monkeys should be cancelled immediately. These monkeys need your help. Please contact your members of Congress today and urge them to halt this upcoming delivery and cruel use of monkeys today. Contact your Congress members: http://www.pcrm.org/email/chemcasualty0811.html Please call your congress members & ask them to stop the upcoming delivery of 20 additional monkeys to be cancelled immediately. This cruelty is being done with our tax dollars on innocent beings. I don't want my tax dollars used for this cruelty. http://www.pcrm.org/email/chemcasualty0811.html  They plan to inject an overdose of the drug physostigmine into vervet monkeys to recreate the effects of a nerve agent attacks. There are human patient simulators that can be programmed to mimic the human response, which is different than a monkey's. Please watch the training video that was obtained through a Freedom of Information request & phone your representatives. This cruelty is being done with our tax dollars on innocent beings! I don't want my tax dollars to support this cruelty. Please call. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please call & write ; forward this email information to others. These animals have no voice but ours and they are suffering for no reason except for profit. This is morally wrong and it is not necessary to harm animals to advance science when we live in the 21st century with superior and more relevant human based methodology. These animals should be released from such confinement and be allowed to live out their lives in sanctuaries. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **** on www.wyou.org, on line, livestream and on Cable 95 and Digital 991 ***** At 10 pm tonight and at 4 am on Tues Sep 13th, we'll be repeating last week's showing of Part 2 of "The Animals Film", narrated by Julie Christie. If you happened to miss it last week, you'll have another opportunity tonight to watch it. There are no links for the entire film, only the 3:49 min trailer   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjRi_pcuzDM and a 6:19 min clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP79maClqII&feature=related, so don't miss this. And at 11 pm, "Beyond the Cage", an Australian documentary about the cruelty & the scientific invalidity of experimentation.  Link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5603770683964338376  and a Times review http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article4847213.ece ---------------------------------------------------------------- New video-research chimps seeing sunshine for first time in 30 years! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKgJVe0CJ08&feature=player_embedded,  http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/311236 (the video in the article here doesn't play) Some of the chimps had been used for HIV and Hepatitius studies and kept in isolation before the the American pharmaceutical firm Baxter took it over and announced they would not continue the testing. More about this in the article and in the paper: "The beginning of the end for chimpanzee experiments" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2432070/pdf/1747-5341-3-16.pdf  *translation to narration in video: Woman's voice: they see the sun for the first time in their lives. After decades of living in a research laboratory, these are the first steps of the chimpanzees in freedom. Michael Aufhauser, the founder of the refuge: They hugged each other, as if saying, 'finally we are free'. Then they laughed. Just imagine as if one spent 30 years locked in an elevator and then the doors of the elevator open after 30 years and one finds himself among friends and says: 'I can hold them'. Michael: They have only seen people dressed, in clothes that bring spacesuits to mind. They have had no contact of any kind. They never learned to climb because they were brought here as babies. An then, suddenly, they could now go out. Woman: The majority of the 38 former laboratory apes have spent the majority of their lives behind bars. Since 2002, they were received into an Austrian refuge (sanctuary) and are very slowly being prepared for a life in freedom. This moment was for both man and animal, in equal measure, unique. Michael: I saw a chimpanzee that was fascinated observing a butterfly. He knew it back then in the jungle as a child. And then suddenly, he sees a butterfly again. Woman: And those apes, which had been born in the research laboratory, discovered for the first time: the air, the grass, freedom.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please write the Institute of Medicine. There couldn't be a more important time than now for you to see the above video, because the Institute of Medicine is reviewing the need for continuing to use chimpanzees to advance science until . We are one of the only 2 countries in the world (Gabon is the other) that still is conducting horribly invasive on these highly intelligent and sentient beings! Please take the time to send your comments to this committee by clicking on this link: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/feedback.aspx?key=49370&type=project and then also contact your members of Congress and ask them to sign on to The Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, reintroduced as S.B.810 and H.R.1513 . Important to read: NY Times op ed piece by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who also tested on primates as a physiologist in the Navy, and who introduced this bipartisan legislation http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/opinion/stop-using-chimps-as-guinea-pigs.html?_r=2&ref=opinion, and questions the need to use chimps "ethically, financially and scientifically".   - the Alliance for Animals' letter to the Institute of Medicine Committee http://www.allanimals.org/files/Chimpanzees_NAS_8-11.pdf -and Justin Goodman's letter yesterday http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/180037-research-on-chimpanzees-must-end -Earlier this year, the Wisconsin State Journal also ran this article http://www.mcclatchydc.com/chimps/ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  please visit www.allanimals.org and http://allanimalsblog.org/ for more information and updates.