A study published last year exploring the neurological effects of dehydration in squirrel monkeys has been retracted for suggesting that monkeys at the New England Primate Research Center died of illness rather than neglect by caretakers. Veterinary Pathology posted an explanation on June 4 stating that the monkeys at the Harvard Medical School facility might not have had access to water.
When Harvard announced in 2013 that the center would close, Medical School dean Dr. Jeffrey Flier blamed finances and not animal welfare. The center was one of eight taxpayer supported facilities set up by Congress in 1962. In 2012, the primate center housed 2,058 monkeys, supported 231 employees and brought in $25 million in federal funding annually.
Since the initial discovery, numerous animal deaths were discovered by Department of Agriculture inspectors and the center was fined $24,000 for multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act, according to the Boston Globe. The center closed on May 31.
Andrew Miller was one of the study's authors. He now works at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. In an email to the Boston Globe, Miller explained that his team voluntarily retracted the paper when they learned that four of the 13 monkeys had restricted access to water; therefore, the deaths could not be attributed to illness. The 2014 study claimed the monkeys stopped drinking because of other illness.
"Further evaluation of clinical case materials which were not available to us at the time of submission and publication of this work suggests that a subset of the animals described in the paper may have had inadequate access to water, likely causing or contributing to the described hypernatremia-associated polioencephalomalacia," authors wrote in the retraction. "The conclusions of the paper, stating an association between hypernatremia and polioencephalomalacia remain valid, however with this new information we can no longer conclude that co-morbidity-associated illness was the sole cause of the hypernatremia in some of the reported animals."
"Every staff member, regardless of their role, worked tirelessly to ensure the health and safety of the animals housed at that facility," Miller told the Boston Globe.
Former director, Dr. Frederick Wang, ran the center from September 2011 to February 2012. Wang showed the Boston Globe a spreadsheet detailing the case of a dozen squirrel monkeys either found dead in their cages due to dehydration or suspiciously euthanized. The dead monkeys included a 10-year-old female whose water line was broken, a 4-year-old female that had no water nozzle in her cage and a 3-year-old female unable to drink because her tooth was caught in a jacket, according to the Boston Globe.
