Call to end experiments on caged monkeys bred at Monash University facility
By Bec Symons and Mim Hook
ABC Gippsland
Topic:Medical Research
15m ago15 minutes agoFri 21 Mar 2025 at 8:33pm
A baby marmoset sitting on a green towel.
Marmosets are bred at the Churchill facility, which can house up to 850 monkeys. (Supplied: Monash University standard operating procedures handbook)
In short:
Monkeys are being bred and studied at Monash University in the Latrobe Valley.
Animal welfare advocates want the work of the Monash Animal Research Platform disclosed publicly.
What's next?
Monash University says the research abides by rigorous regulations and ethical considerations.
In a small country town east of Melbourne, monkeys are bred in a university laboratory and used for experiments to improve health and medical outcomes for people around the world.
Warning: This article describes procedures some readers may find distressing.
Monash University's Animal Research Platform (MARP), at the Churchill campus in the Latrobe Valley, has for more than 15 years been the subject of whispers and secrecy.
The facility, which has been kept largely from public view, is permitted to house up to 850 marmosets and macaques at its Gippsland Field Station.
Research papers detail neurological studies conducted there since 2018, along with research involving monkeys deliberately infected with HIV to examine the effects on their small bodies.
Mother and baby macacque in the facility at Churchill.
A mother and baby macaque in the facility at Churchill. (Supplied: Monash University standard operating procedures handbook)
Robyn Kirby, who is a lead campaigner against testing on primates with Animal-free Science Advocacy, used Victoria's freedom of information legislation to obtain the MARP facility's standard operating procedures manual, including photos from inside the facility.
The manual outlines ways to handle and treat the marmosets and macaques bred at the campus.
It was the first time the group had been able to obtain inside documentation about the primate research program.
"Any primate research around the country is quite secretive and the only way for us to find information is by looking at the research publications,"
Ms Kirby said.
"So that's why we have sent off various freedom of information requests to the Gippsland facility to try and find out about the conditions, the number of animals that are there [and] their unexplained deaths."
Woman with a grey hair style and glasses wearing a tshirt that reads 'the future of science is animal-free'
Robyn Kirby is campaigning to have testing on primates stopped. (Supplied: Robyn Kirby)
A spokesperson for Monash University said researchers adhered to rigorous regulations, ethical considerations and relevant codes of practice in all research involving animals.
"Monash research aims to solve problems like cancer, diabetes and improve health and medical outcomes for people," the spokesperson said.
"This includes research which can only be studied in living organisms.
"The use of any animal is a necessity accompanied by moral and legal obligations for their care … underpinned by a transparent and efficient ethics review process."
A laboratory worker cleaning the primate cages with a hose.
A laboratory worker cleans the primate cages. (Supplied: Monash University standard operating procedures handbook)
But Ms Kirby said the research was invasive, inhumane and unnecessary.
"They involve the primates having brain lesions, they have to have a craniotomy, and their brain is opened up," Ms Kirby said.
"These experiments are, in our view, and in the view of many, unethical.
"It's time for primate experimentation to end."
A baby marmoset.
A baby marmoset inside the facility. (Supplied: Monash University standard operating procedures handbook)
Testing transparency
Monash University said research using animals was still essential to ensure medical advancements for the betterment of people around the world.
Many universities, research bodies and pharmaceutical companies signed an Openness Agreement on Animal Research and Teaching in Australia in August 2023.
Monash University has not signed up to the agreement, despite running the only primate research platform in Victoria.
Bella Lear, from Understanding Animal Research Oceania, was instrumental in setting up the agreement with the aim of informing people about how and why animals were still used in research.
A woman looks at the camera.
Bella Lear advocates for more transparency in medical research. (Supplied: Bella Lear)
"Without openness and transparency on the behalf of research institutions, it is very difficult for everybody to understand why it is that science is carried out in the particular way that it is, and in a vacuum of information, you get misinformation," Ms Lear said.
"Nobody wants to be doing research on monkeys … but I think that the idea that we don't need primates anymore … is just unrealistic."
She said primates were often used to corroborate data that had been collected from human studies or data that had been collected from alternative studies.
"It happens because it's usually a project has got to a critical point, and that's exactly what they need to do," she said.
"I would prefer that the researchers there continue to do what they're doing and do that research in Australia … rather than any of the countries where you don't need to follow the ethical protocols that we have here."
A marmoset baby clinging on to a teddy.
A marmoset baby has its gripping reflexes tested. (Supplied: Monash University standard operating procedures handbook)
Contradictory arguments
Upper house member for Northern Victoria with the Animal Justice Party, Georgie Purcell, said not enough was known about how the facility in the Latrobe Valley operated.
"It's intentionally secretive because the facilities and the government know that there would be uproar,"
she said.
A lady with white blonde hair stands in a paddock
Georgie Purcell says research funding should be directed to advancing technology. (ABC News: Tyrone Dalton)
She said the use of animals was unethical and contradictory.
"With primates, we run this line of, sort of, 'We test on animals because they are like us'," Ms Purcell said.
"But then when people question the ethics of it they say, 'Well, it's actually because they're not like us', and we sort of have this power over them.
"We can actually advance medical research and use the funding provided for that in ways that not only don't harm animals, but have more successful outcomes, and it seems that there's this old school sort of unwillingness to let go of what has always been done."
Posted15m ago15 minutes agoFri 21 Mar 2025 at 8:33pm
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