(The Center Square) – PETA disapproves of a Harvard professor’s suggestion that the school may euthanize unneeded lab animals due to stop-work orders that followed the federal government’s freezing of $2.2 billion in the university’s research funding.
“Harvard’s Sarah Fortune and other animal experimenters are essentially holding animals hostage to keep the public dollars flowing, claiming they will have to euthanize the animals in their laboratories if their funding is cut,” PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo said in a statement.
When reached, PETA neuroscientist and former NIH researcher Katherine Roe told The Center Square that the organization “has yet to receive any response from Harvard” concerning the possibility of euthanizing lab monkeys.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – or, PETA – is an animal liberation organization that believes that “animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way,” according to its website.
Guillermo’s statement is in response to a comment Harvard professor of immunology and infectious diseases Sarah Fortune made to Harvard Magazine.
After speaking with Fortune, Harvard Magazine reported an example of an immediate consequence of stop-work orders is that “if a trial for tuberculosis vaccine being tested on macaque monkeys cannot be completed, the monkeys might have to be euthanized.”
The monkeys, themselves, are safe, however, because of private donations that have come in, “including one donor who specifically pledged to support the monkeys,” Harvard Magazine reported after speaking with Fortune.
Neither Fortune nor Harvard media relations responded to The Center Square when asked what the school plans to do with animals that are no longer needed for research projects and what the school’s response to PETA’s statement is.
According to her statement, PETA’s Guillermo sees the stop-work situation at Harvard as “an opportunity for animal laboratories to shut their doors forever and to explore superior, animal-free methods of research.”
“The Department of Health and Human Services has clearly stated that all facilities should consider placing animals in homes and sanctuaries, but we see no evidence this possibility is even being explored [at Harvard],” Guillermo said.
Fortune is at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Fortune is also supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation among others, according to a school bio.
The Center Square previously reported that Harvard lost over $2.2 billion in federal funding because it would not comply with demands from the Trump administration concerning antisemitism and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The Trump administration has been working the past several months to root out antisemitism and DEI from education, making the dissolution of race-based decisions a condition for receiving federal funding.
