At the recent "open house" the California Regional Primate Research Center (CRPRC) gave media representatives a press release entitled: "Primate Research: Saving lives, improving human health."  This release was misleading and vague.  It is assumed that the "important results" listed are likely to be what CRPRC officials consider to be the most important results of their 37 year history.  The specific assertions are challenged below in the order they were presented.

CRPRC: developed a surfactant for infants with premature lungs.
A MEDLINE search of "surfactant" revealed a total of 8759 published studies on this substance produced in the lungs of babies shortly before birth.  The first study was published in 1969. A search of "surfactant AND primate" yielded 16 publications. Of these 16 studies only one seems to have been associated with UCDavis - Prenatal exposure to epidermal growth factor attenuates respiratory distress syndrome in rhesus infants. Goetzman BW, Read LC, Plopper CG, Tarantal AF, George-Nascimento C, Merritt TA, Whitsett JA, Styne D. Pediatric Research 1994 Jan 35:1 30-6.

In this study, five rhesus monkey infants were treated with epidermal growth factor (EGF) before they were born. The authors concluded, "EGF stimulates biochemical and histologic maturation of the lung and markedly attenuates the clinical severity of respiratory disease in this model of simian respiratory distress syndrome."

A search of epidermal growth factor research indicates that the Davis study did not stimulate any further research or development of any commercial product.

CRPC: Developed pre-natal surgical techniques…(including) hydrocephalus
But a MEDLINE search revealed that in 1983 work concerning methods of correcting hydrocephalus in human fetuses was underway. ("Fetal surgery for hydrocephalus: successful in utero ventriculoamniotic shunt for Dandy-Walker syndrome".  DeppR. Et al. Obstet Gynecol 1983 Jun 61:6710-4)

During the same year, an experiment was successful in creating hydrocephaly in lambs and rhesus monkeys, however, even this destructive work does not appear to have been pioneered at Davis.

CRPC: Developed a preventative drug for African River blindness
According to a 1998 ABC News report, "Charles Mackenzie, a veterinarian turned immunologist, chairman of Michigan State University's Department of Pathology, noticed that animals ranging from horses to dogs suffered from a similar disease.  He and others wondered if a drug developed by Merck & Co. to treat animals might also work on humans. A decade ago, the World Health Organization organized a carefully controlled trial of the drug on human victims in relatively stable West Africa. The results were astonishing…"After eight years of using it in West Africa, no child under six years of age is infected," MacKenzie says.  The World Health Organization says the disease has now been "all but eliminated" in 11 West African countries.  Nothing is mentioned about the California Regional Primate Research Center.

CRPC: Performed tests that proved the safety…
No tests can prove the safety of a medication on humans other than clinical trials on humans.  If this were not so, clinical trials would not be needed and adverse reactions to properly prescribed drugs would not be among the top ten causes of death in the United States.

CRPRC: Performed studies to improve the effectiveness.
Performing studies is what CRPRC does. It is disingenuous to claim the performance of a study as an "important result."

CRPRC: Tested the safety of new drugs . . .
If the tests were valid and predictive, the FDA would not require limited clinical human trials before marketing.  Tests are not "important results."

CRPRC: Tested the safety of antibiotics . . .
But proved nothing concerning humans. Clinical trials were still required.

CRPRC: developed . . . PMPA . . .
The earliest citation found which referred to PMPA was: Development of vaginal microbiocides for the prevention of heterosexual transmission of HIV. Pauwels R, De Clercq E. J "Acquired Immune Defic iency Syndrome" Hum Retrovirol 1996 Mar 1 11:3 211-21. Rega Institute for Medical Research, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

CRPRC: developed treatments for HIV-infected women to prevent  transmission of the AIDS virus to their babies.
All of CRPRC's work under the label of HIV/AIDS is actually observations
of SIV (simian immuno-virus) which is not transmitted from mother to infant. All HIV progress has been a direct result of clinical studies on humans who are HIV positive. The monkey research is commonly criticized as wasteful and misleading by clinical researchers.

CRPRC: Improved strategies for developing . . .
Until something is actually developed, it remains to be seen whether the strategies to develop it were useful or not. This is hardly an "important result."

CRPRC: Completed animal studies . . .
The primate center has been completing animal studies for nearly four decades now, and these completions have led only to career advancement and an ever growing budget.

CRPRC: Improved methods for the treatment of diabetes.
No, again.  It is clinicians who have discovered the links to diet, and the drug of choice for insulin dependent diabetes, Humalin, was not developed at CRPRC.

In the final analysis, it is clear that CRPRC has little to celebrate. Their "important results" appear to be more an attempt to associate themselves with the success of others. The list they gave the area media must represent the cream of what they believe to be evidence of productive research.

Our experience with other Regional Primate Research Centers and their parent agency, the National Institutes of Health has demonstrated that the officials charged with addressing the public will lie, change their story, and intentionally frighten and mislead the public. These are strong words but the facts speak for themselves. 

Reprinted with kind permission of Coalition to End Animal Experiments, CEPE.

CEPE's Primate Tour, a caravan of buses and other vehicles, have toured the US all summer seeking to open dialogue with animal experimenters at major research centers, enduring summer heat in the South, marching, rallying supporters, holding press conferences.  Individuals have fasted as long as four days in
3 x 3 x 6 foot cages in empathy with the other primates inside the institution being visited.

Throughout the tour, press releases have emphasized the waste of tax dollars on bad science as well as the suffering endured by confined primates.