For many people, NASA represents cutting-edge science and grandiose achievements like sending a human to the moon. Unfortunately, future NASA plans are not so inspiring.
NASA has announced that it plans to fund a $1.75 million project in which up to 30 squirrel monkeys will be exposed to a large, harmful dose of radiation and then be locked in steel cages without any companionship. They will be forced to endure years of behavioral tests to measure the inevitable devastation that the radiation causes to their brains and bodies, which would likely include brain damage, skin inflammation, blindness, various types of cancer, including brain tumors, and premature death.
Because of drastic biological differences between species, radiation experiments on monkeys won't tell scientists anything about how astronauts will react to deep space. Luckily, modern
in vitro and clinical research methods are available and can be used to study the affects of space radiation on the human body.
In the past, NASA has halted plans to use monkeys in space experiments when the public spoke out against this cruelty, and animals need your support once again.
Please contact NASA officials and politely ask them to permanently halt plans to fund radiation experiments using monkeys and to instead direct their funds to modern and humane methods of scientific inquiry.
Please help stop the suffering. Sign the petition below.
I was shocked to learn that NASA intends to fund a project that will use squirrel monkeys for cruel experiments involving dangerous exposure to radiation. The use of monkeys in such experiments is both ethically and scientifically unjustifiable.
Please immediately put an end to these experiments and instead direct American tax dollars toward further developing and implementing modern non-animal research methods to learn about the health effects of space travel.
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