Undercover investigation in Weizmann Institute

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Over the course of the past 30 years, Professor Amihan Greenbelt and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute have conducted a series of invasive and punishing experiments on monkeys and cats. These are the other organization like the animals lived carried out an under recovering investigation in the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in October 2007 and documented experiments conducted by Dr. David Omar on eight monkeys obtained from the Mansour Breeding Farm in Israel.

The monkey experiments lasted up to four years. During all of these time, the monkeys are kept alone in small cages with no environmental enrichments and in wounds with no windows. Everyday they are forcibly removed from their cages with the help of a monkey catch pole and then placed in the primate chair for between 28 hours a day where they are unable to move.

During the first two years of training, the monkeys learn to focus their vision on a small spot screened on the monitor. The training session takes place in the narrow and darkened rooms in which the monkeys are left completely on their own. The monkeys are deliberately kept in a constant state of thirst. Only a correct response result in the monkey’s receiving a reward of a few drops of water through a tube clinging into do their mouth. After the two-year training period, the monkeys undergo surgery to attach a dental cement casted to their head, which will allow their brains to be colored and photographed. As a preparation for the more severe part of the experiment that will go on for a year. The monkeys are taught toward lines into the computer screen.

At this stage, the monkeys will again undergo surgery and have two holes drilled into their skulls in which are implanted silicon chambers. In the final part of the experiment, which also lasts for about a year, the monkeys are placed in a primate chair for eight hours a day several times a week during which the brain will be photographed as it responds to spots and lines on the computer screen. A special dye is applied to the brain surface for this purpose.

The monkeys with head implants undergo a painful half-hour head shave twice a week in order to remove any hair around the implant. All of these experiments fall under the head of basic research, which by the definition need not yield any practical application to human or veterinary medicine.

In addition to the monkey experiments, cats are also used in the laboratory. These studies are conducted by Dr. Schwel Norman, who is also a student of Professor Greenbelt. This cat does not know that this is going to be the last day of her life. Part of the cat skull is removed. The brain is exposed and photographed and the cat is then killed.

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