Rep. Mace calls on NIH for transparency on testing of monkeys at Morgan Island, SC

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace has renewed her “deep concerns” about a federal research program that uses monkeys from a sea island in Beaufort County.

In a news release issued Wednesday, Mace said she recently sent a letter to Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, director of the National Institutes of Health, expressing concerns about the federal agency’s funding for the monkey colony on Morgan Island and subsequent experiments run by Rocky Mountain Laboratories. The laboratories are part of the NIH Intramural Research Program in Montana.

Mace’s news release called for “transparency and accountability” from the NIH about the monkey breeding colony on Morgan Island.

Her key inquiries largely focused on the impact to taxpayers to conduct research on the primates.

They included:

▪ The number of monkeys on the island

▪ Taxpayer expenses to maintain the colony

▪ The number of monkeys transferred to the Montana laboratories and other federal labs

▪ An account of experiments on the monkeys, project details, costs, and U.S. Department of Agriculture pain categories that classify animal pain or distress in research facilities. The Animal Welfare Act requires research facilities to report on procedures that involve “pain, distress and/or the use of pain-relieving drugs,” according to the Agriculture Department.

▪ Extent of Morgan Island monkeys used in gain-in-function research

The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette have reached out to the NIH for comment.

‘We want this practice to end’

Mace has been a strong critic of research conducted on monkeys at the 4,489-acre Morgan Island. In 2021, she called on the federal government to shut down its testing program, calling it “barbaric.”

“It’s disgusting,” Mace said in 2021. The 1st District congresswoman said at the time that she learned many of the experiments involve infecting the primates with debilitating and painful diseases and withholding pain relief, according to previous Island Packet reporting.

“We want this practice to end,” she said.

The research is conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the NIH.

Since 1979, Morgan Island has been home to a breeding colony of about 3,500 free-ranging rhesus macaque monkeys, that are a source for federal government laboratories, the allergy and disease institute wrote in a 2021 statement to the Island Packet. The monkeys on the island are descendants of a Puerto Rican colony that originated in India, the institute said.

Every year, government researchers work with between 400 and 600 rhesus macaques “for research that helps develop life-saving prevention tools and treatments for diseases affecting public health,” according to previous reporting. No research is conducted on Morgan Island, the institute said.

The institute added that all animal study proposals are reviewed by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee comprised of veterinarians, community members and scientists.

In a Nov. 30, 2021, letter, Mace wrote to now-former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci calling for a full accounting of involvement in operating Morgan Island by NIAID. She asked for the number of monkeys taken from the island and the experiments performed since Jan. 1, 2020, and how much taxpayer funding was used, according to previous Island Packet reporting.

Fauci’s February 2022 response to Mace noted that 500 monkeys from Morgan Island were shipped to the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories, according to the congresswoman.

In Mace’s most recent letter to Bertagnolli on Jan. 31, she said she’d “become aware of disturbing, photographs and other documents” that a nonprofit obtained using the Freedom of Information Act.

“Records show that in many cases, these animals are subjected to pain and distress and pain relief is intentionally withheld,” Mace wrote to Bertagnolli.