Teenager’s Nationwide Protest Tour of Primate Labs

August 2004

If Jeremy Beckham’s English Composition teacher asks the 19-year-old college freshman to write an essay about "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," she will read a unique essay about the young man’s summer road-trip to expose primate abuse.

From May to August 2004, Jeremy traveled to the United States’ eight National Primate Research Centers, where government-funded biomedical research on primates takes place on a large scale. This tour was sponsored by the animal protection group In Defense of Animals and by the Primate Freedom Project, a not-for-profit organization that, as stated on their Web site, "is dedicated to ending the use of nonhuman primates in cruel and harmful experimentation and other forms of exploitation."

Jeremy spent two and a half months on the road with stuffed monkeys for companions, along with banners, posters, videos, stickers, and boxes of flyers that detailed the cruel treatment of primates that occurs in the labs. In front of each of the eight research centers, Jeremy set up an information table and invited pedestrians and motorists to learn about the issue of primate experimentation. Braving hassles from the local police and laboratory security guards as well as occasional insults from less compassionate passersby, Jeremy met with hundreds of individuals at his literature table and candlelight vigils-lab workers, reporters, neighbors to the research centers (many of whom were unaware of the centers’ presence in their own backyard), and concerned everyday citizens.

Jeremy is not a stranger to challenging primate experimenters in the US. Last fall he used the Freedom of Information Act to request copies of the research protocols for current experiments involving nonhuman primates at the University of Utah. He wanted to find out more about how primate research subjects were being treated at that institution. The University initially denied his request, citing concerns over security and confidentiality. But in January 2004 the State Records Committee ruled that Jeremy should have access to this information.

Many supporters along the way

All along Jeremy’s summertime journey, he says that he was encouraged by the large numbers of activists and ordinary people who supported and encouraged him, both with strictly vegetarian coffeecake as well as with their stories. He tells about an encounter in Seattle with a man from Malaysia who had volunteered at an animal sanctuary in Africa; "these [researchers] are sick," the man stated flatly. At the New England National Primate Research Center, Jeremy met a former lab worker who had done data entry there. According to Jeremy, she had noticed that "the record-record-keeping there was very poor. She remembers times when different reports indicated different years for a particular monkey’s death." And in San Antonio, Jeremy and his friend Autumn rescued an emaciated dog who had been chained up next to a house beside the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research. Ironically, someone from inside the lab filed a fictitious animal cruelty complaint-against Jeremy. Fortunately the police officer who was obliged to "investigate" the case soon realized that the dog was now in excellent hands.

At his final stop in Davis, California, Jeremy describes meeting a man who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for three years; "I know what it feels like to be imprisoned for years-it’s absolute hell. And that’s exactly what it’s like for those poor creatures over there," said the POW. Adds Jeremy, "one person who said she worked at the primate center for a few months... confirmed all of our claims of mistreatment of animals. She said many of UC Davis’ primates self-mutilate-some so bad they even have to be euthanized. How tragic... [Meanwhile], humans are dying from real diseases that animal testing has provided no answers for. What a scandal and a fraud."

Throughout the road-trip Jeremy kept a record of his daily adventures. To read Jeremy’s complete diaries, visit the Web site of the Primate Freedom Project www.primatefreedom.com/diary.html