SENATOR BILL NELSON: End Federal Grants Used For Primate Torture At The University Of Florida

1. Stop federal grants for primate torture at the University of Florida.

2. Grants to research programs for non-animal alternatives only.

3. Send primates at UF to local animal sanctuaries......

Dear Senator Nelson:

We, the undersigned, urgently request that you use your influence and enlist the support of as many senators as can be recruited for the purpose of eliminating the flow of federal grants through the National Institutes of Health and any other agencies that are financing the torture, mutilation, and murder of primates in laboratories of the University of Florida. As compassionate human beings, we vehemently object to the savagery of the useless experiments that are inflicting agony on innocent, defenseless animals. As taxpayers, we bitterly resent the use of our tax payments for immoral, brutal purposes. We hope that you will share our commitment to accomplishing the release of these animals and the cessation of all of the political and bureaucratic processes that result in animals being captured and subjected to indefensible, indescribable suffering.

Taxpayers unwittingly give the University of Florida approximately $400 million each and every year for the sole purpose of performing unnecessary and gratuitously-invasive experiments on animals. For several years, activists have repeatedly dragged the University of Florida into court to compel full disclosure of their atrocities they consistently and vehemently try to hide. We have won every single time we sued. What are they trying to hide? The image embedded in this petition should give one an idea. It was awarded to activists in a court of law on December 30, 2011. And the thousands of documents we have obtained since have only uncovered increasingly-unimaginable horrors.

In 1992, ten baby monkeys were captured in the jungles of Guyana (their mothers most likely murdered in front of them). Terrified, bewildered, and disoriented, they were shipped to the US where they were caged inside the University of Florida. One of these babies, Monkey 2A4, spent 17 years being drugged and tortured in his tiny cage. His heart finally gave out and he died in 1999.

A little capuchin monkey named Louis landed in UF's labs in 2008. The following year it was discovered that he had a broken hip. The “researchers” did absolutely nothing to relieve his pain. While he suffered in agony, UF's “scientists” tried to fix his broken hip by treating him for parasites. After one year, when the parasite treatments failed, Louis was incinerated! The final note on his veterinary records chillingly reads: “this animal was unable to be used.” Eleventh Hour for Animals filed a federal complaint against Stephen Roberts and the University of Florida on December 24, 2013 citing systemic incompetence and gross negligence. A Federal investigation is expected to begin in 2014.

The University of Florida would like the public to believe that they torment animals in the course of conducting medical research. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If they were truly interested in medical progress, they would implement technologically-advanced and far more accurate alternatives. But because of the federal grant money lavished upon this institution via our tax dollars, animal experiments are far more lucrative.

Document after document reveals an unending series of unnecessary and brutal experiments. For more in-depth information about the individual monkeys, the suffering they are forced to endure, and the legal measures activists have taken to expose UF and hold them accountable, please visit Eleventh Hour for Animals at http://universityofflorida.us/

The University of Florida has proven that they have no respect for American taxpayers and no respect for the law. Their useless experiments and the atrocities they perpetrate on monkeys at our expense is unacceptable and needs to end immediately. Please stop the flow of federal dollars into the University of Florida and end their nonhuman primate experiment industry today.