WIKIMEDIA, BORIS23The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has paused a study of nicotine addiction in squirrel monkeys that primatologist Jane Goodall objected to. She wrote a letter—in which she called the research “horrific”—to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. Although Gottlieb communicated with Goodall, an FDA spokesman tells The Scientist that the agency's decision to stop the study was independent of her plea. The letter from Goodall, an outspoken animal rights advocate, was posted on the website of the White Coat Waste (WCW) Project, an organization that seeks to stop animal research funded by US taxpayers, earlier this month (September 7).
According to the Washington Post, Gottlieb responded to Goodall on Monday (September 25), saying that he would temporarily suspend the three-year-old study, which FDA researchers are conducting at the agency’s National Center for Toxicological Research in Arkansas. The FDA commissioner reportedly assured Goodall that he made the decision “after learning of concerns related to the study you referenced,” and said that he was dispatching primate experts to the Arkansas facility “to evaluate the safety and well-being of the monkeys and to understand whether there are additional precautions needed.”
In her letter, Goodall took issue with the fact that juvenile monkeys were being implanted with devices that delivered nicotine directly into their systems and then taught to press a lever that dosed them with the drug. ...
