Fauci blasted by PETA for using monkeys in 'horrendous HIV experiments'
PETA urged Fauci to end 'horrendous HIV experiments' on monkeys
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci in a letter Thursday for allowing the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to continue using monkeys in HIV and AIDS vaccination experiments.
The letter states that NIAID has been using macaques, a type of monkey, for experiments into a potential vaccine for HIV and AIDS for almost 40 years.
"The macaque model for developing a vaccine for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has failed. After nearly 40 years of painful, deadly, expensive experiments — a vaccine is still not on the market," the letter states.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Additionally, the letter states that HIV is human-specific, and macaques' have qualities that prevent HIV replication in their tissues and they cannot develop AIDS.
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Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. Nov. 4, 2021. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The letter was released in response to Fauci’s World AIDS Day statement, which says that "finding a safe, effective and durable HIV vaccine remains an NIH priority."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Lisa Jones-Engel, a senior science advisor for PETA, maintains that the experiments on macaques have proven to be an "unqualified failure."
PETA cited one instance where Fauci said that a preclinical study on a cure for HIV involving monkeys "might have been a fluke" after it did not help humans infected with the virus.
Jones-Engel also alleged that Fauci ignored the "presence of unintended infections" that occur in monkeys used in these experiments, citing an investigation by the Arizona Republic that shows that the presence of Valley fever in monkeys has the potential to damage the reliability of HIV research.
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Rhesus macaques monkey resident of a temple dedicated to the Hindu monkey god Hanuman in February 2018 in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. (Barry Lewis/In Pictures via Getty Images)
"This has cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and condemned hundreds of thousands of monkeys to miserable lives and deaths," the PETA letter states. "And the public is still waiting for a vaccine to prevent HIV. Please stop funding and conducting HIV/SHIV/AIDS experiments on monkeys."
One National Institutes of Health grant for a project in 2020 lists Fauci as the project leader and states that monkeys were used to test their hypothesis. At least $1,001,661 was given to this project by the NIH.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fauci has also been the coauthor of several studies seeking to find a cure for HIV and the simian immunodeficiency virus, which used monkeys for testing purposes.
A long-tailed macaque is seen at the Pra Prang Sam Yot temple before the annual Monkey Buffet Festival in Lopburi, north of Bangkok in November 2015. (REUTERS/Jorge Silva)
Instead, PETA is pushing for Fauci to shift to "modern, human-relevant research," that reduces animal research.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Anthony Fauci’s agency at the National Institutes of Health has funded 36 years of horrendous HIV experiments on monkeys — and there is still no vaccine," PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo said. "Fauci has publicly stated why the monkey HIV experiments aren’t working — yet he fails, decade after decade, to stop them. He even co-led many of these experiments himself. Monkeys don’t get HIV, and Fauci needs to end experiments on them and instead fund modern, human-relevant research," .
Fox News reached out to the National Institutes of Health for comment.