Escaped Monkeys
Four monkeys remain at large after 43 escaped earlier this month from the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center in South Carolina. The lab, which has received over $109 million in federal funding, helped develop several therapeutic drugs and vaccines, including those to treat COVID-19.

Four monkeys remain unaccounted for after 43 escaped earlier this month from a research laboratory in South Carolina. The breakout raised questions about a possible public health threat, lax security at research labs and the nature of the research being conducted in South Carolina and at similar facilities.

The primates — Rhesus macaque monkeys — escaped the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center in Yemassee, South Carolina, on Nov. 6. According to ABC News, the facility has a history of safety and security breaches and "has come under intense scrutiny," including calls for a congressional investigation.

The monkeys' escape ignited concerns that the primates "might spread disease" in the local community.

It also drew attention to the Alpha Genesis lab, which received $19 million in federal contracts this year — a 160% increase since 2021 — and a total of $109.2 million in federal funding from 319 grants in all fiscal years.

Much of the funding has gone to research involving primates. Alpha Genesis also manages "Monkey Island" — a National Institutes of Health (NIH) facility in South Carolina that houses 3,300 primates.

Monkeys were used in preclinical COVID vaccine testing

According to ABC News, primates are often used in biomedical research "because of their genetic, anatomic, physiologic and behavioral similarities to humans."

Internist and biological warfare epidemiologist Dr. Meryl Nass told The Defender the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — formerly headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci — operates monkey labs at its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, its Fort Detrick research facility in Frederick, Maryland, and its Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana.

Alpha Genesis also provides researchers across the country with "nonhuman primate biological products and materials, including serum, plasma, whole blood ... and tissue samples from a wide variety of research species," according to the company's website.

"The private company's researchers have helped develop several therapeutic drugs and vaccines, including those to treat the COVID-19 virus," ABC News reported.

Veterinarian and public health consultant Dr. Gail Hansen told The Defender primates "are often used as part of the last stages in development before testing can advance to human trials — this includes COVID, Zika and other diseases."

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., a bioweapons expert who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, told The Defender that "scientists" traditionally use primates "to research, develop and test the effectiveness of offensive biological warfare weapons."

"By reverse-engineering the biotechnology involved, they try to produce an experimental 'vaccine' for the biological warfare weapon they have just produced by using primates as well," Boyle said. "Oftentimes, the experimental 'vaccine' is just as dangerous as the biological warfare weapon itself."

Alpha Genesis received seven COVID-19-related contracts totaling $8.91 million in 2020 — including contracts related to COVID-19 vaccine development.

"Rhesus macaques, a species closely related to humans in terms of physiology and immune response, were the primary subjects used in preclinical COVID-19 vaccine testing," epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher told The Defender.

"COVID-19 is a primary case in point," Boyle said in an email. "COVID-19 is an offensive biological warfare weapon with gain-of-function properties that leaked out of China's Wuhan Institute of Virology. Then, using this experimental mRNA biotechnology, the 'scientists' produced an experimental 'vaccine' that is neither safe nor effective but existentially dangerous to human beings."

Sasha Latypova, a former pharmaceutical industry executive, told The Defender that in the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, "monkeys were used to assess whether covid vaccines would cause an enhanced disease instead of preventing disease."

Gain-of-function research, which involves the genetic alteration of an organism to enhance its biological functions — potentially including its transmissibility — is commonly performed using primates, said Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Children's Health Defense (CHD).

"Monkeys have and will most likely continue to be used in gain-of-function research in laboratories worldwide," Hooker said. "This is extremely concerning because of the similarities between monkey and human physiology. Compounding the concern is the propensity for lab leaks, including monkeys that escape from the lab."

Nass suggested it may be time to ask what these animals are being used for. "If it is to perform gain-of-function (biowarfare) research, which everyone used to believe was illegal according to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1975, maybe it is time to say 'No more,'" Nass said.

Latypova expressed skepticism that gain-of-function research can be performed successfully. But, "what can be achieved can still be dangerous. They are creating bio-chemical poisons. They are also creating fake narratives about pandemics, driving people to fear and self-destructive behavior, including mRNA vaccinations."

Escaped monkeys 'a severe public health hazard'

Hooker told The Defender that the pathogens used by gain-of-function researchers are typically zoonotic, "so transmission from monkey to human could be likely."

"These escaped monkeys could have been deliberately infected with extremely dangerous offensive biowarfare weapons and their related experimental 'vaccines,' which could be the same thing," Boyle said. "These escaped monkeys are all a severe public health hazard to the surrounding community."

According to Hansen, laboratory monkeys may spread dangerous pathogens to humans. She said:

"Old world monkeys, like macaques, often have B virus — Herpes virus B, Herpesvirus simiae — a minor disease in the non-human primates, but with a case fatality rate of 80% in people. Even those people who survive often have long recovery periods. It is transmitted by saliva, bites and scratches. There is no vaccine to prevent it and no specific treatment.

"In theory, hepatitis A, tuberculosis, influenza, RSV, rotavirus, and rubeola can be spread from macaques to people, but usually it is the apes that get those diseases from us. They can get the same bacterial diseases we can ... as well as several parasitic diseases."

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for CHD, told The Defender that reviewing just the documented escapes, "you will find infected lab workers who don't quarantine, the wrong pathogens administered to the wrong animals with inappropriate isolation measures, infected and escaped lab mice that were never found, and these 43 escaped monkeys."

"These breaches are not the exception," Jablonowski said. "There is no such thing as a leak-proof research facility."

Safety concerns prompted Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) to send a letter to NIH and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) earlier this month, expressing "very urgent concerns regarding federal oversight of Alpha Genesis." Mace said the prolonged attempts to recapture all of the primates are "placing the animals and my constituents at risk."

Mace told ABC News, "A lot of constituents were concerned about whether or not the primates that escaped were sick or ill, or have been tested on. ... There were a lot of folks concerned about the facility being a breeding facility and the testing that goes on there as well."

Citing the significant increase in government funding of Alpha Genesis, Mace told ABC News, "It's shocking how much money is being spent on testing primates."

"For years, Alpha Genesis has racked up federal contracts and taxpayer dollars while consistently violating animal welfare laws and exposing the public to dangerous escapes," Mace wrote in her letter. "NIH and USDA need to step up and ensure South Carolinians don't bear the risk of this lab's negligence."

The letter asks the NIH and USDA to provide her office with "a full briefing," including a "complete breakdown of active contracts and inspections with Alpha Genesis," documentation of communication with the lab about the recent monkey escape and "immediate corrective actions to enhance oversight and safety" at the lab.

History of health and safety violations at the Alpha Genesis lab

In remarks shared with ABC News, Alpha Genesis founder and CEO Gregory Westergaard defended the lab's safety record. He said the company is investigating the possibility that the monkey's escape was "an intentional act" by an employee.


Comment: It may very well have been an intentional act given all we now know about the military's intentions and tendencies to spread illness and offer a sickening "solution" in the form of a vaccine.


Westergaard said the most likely reason for the escape was "human error due to an employee failing to secure containment doors behind her."

According to ABC News, Mace's letter says that Alpha Genesis has a history of problems dating back to at least 2014, including incidents where lab animals escaped or were found dead due to trauma, and placement in incorrect enclosures.

In a Nov. 18 letter, Stop Animal Exploitation Now, a federal watchdog group that opposes animal experimentation, filed a federal complaint against Alpha Genesis, citing several safety violations and incidents that compromised the health and safety of lab animals at the company's facilities in 2021 and 2022.

Jablonowski noted that animals held at the Alpha Genesis facility have sometimes been found in an unhealthy state.

"The aim is to have healthy animals, so why do the company's own emails show they endure extreme weight loss, are deprived of food or are fed moldy food? Moldy food will introduce mycotoxins into the animal, and the effects will percolate down to affect the science or therapies derived from these animals," Jablonowski said.

According to Hooker, "The regulation of animal facilities in the U.S. is poor. Most surveillance is passive and facility inspections — especially by federal authorities — are rare. Regulation of gain-of-function research in the U.S. is even worse."

For Hansen, this is part of a broader problem. "The U.S. is by far the largest importer of [lab] animals globally, mostly for research by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies," Hansen said. "Yet, the breeding and trade of macaques historically has been poorly regulated by the large international suppliers of macaques."

Hansen suggested laboratories may be cutting corners financially. "The animals are expensive to maintain, with less and less reason to use them. And care for the animals after the experiments are finished is also costly, since killing them at the end of the experiments is rarely an option," Hansen said.

Boyle, a lawyer who previously represented residents of communities housing biological laboratories, said the local community near the Alpha Genesis facility should be given answers about the nature of the research conducted there.

"The community has a right to know about what the escaped monkeys were infected with, as determined by an outside independent scientific inspection agency other than the self-interested, conflicted and compromised USDA," Boyle said.