A US judge has ruled that a controversial research laboratory must release video of its experiments, which an animal rights group alleges show that researchers "inflict pain and suffering" on monkeys.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) took the Oregon Health and Science University to court toforce the release of videos from the Oregon National Primate Research Centre.
The videos show research on Japanese macaques and the lab received funding from the US government.
The lab has a chequered history, including being found guilty of violations of animal welfare and allegations that monkeys died in botched experiments.
According to court records, the videos in question show experiments where pregnant monkeys are given high-fat diets and their offspring are then studied.
Other experiments involved deliberating scaring the animals to record their reactions.
PETA alleges the researchers "inflict pain and suffering" on the animals, including "forcing the animals to eat lard and addicting them to nicotine and alcohol".
"These kinds of videos are highly controversial because they inflict pain and suffering on baby monkeys," said Martina Bernstein, a lawyer for PETA.
Multnomah County Judge David Rees ordered that 74 videos be released in last month's ruling.
He said the release was in the public interest because the lab had previously been found guilty of mistreating the animals.
"Some of these violations caused harm to [primates] and some did not," Rees wrote.
"The public has an interest in seeing ONPRC's videos of its studies to ensure ONPRC's compliance with regulatory requirements in using [primates] in experiments."
The judge added: "The public also has an interest in knowing how public [National Institutes of Health] grant funding is being spent and whether the experiments at issue are a worthy use of public funds."
PETA have made a series of allegations about the treatment of the monkeys. Photo / PETA
In a statement after the ruling, PETA said: "OHSU was happy to take millions of tax dollars to impregnate monkeys, feed them 'junk food', and then separate the baby monkeys from their mothers in order to deliberately frighten them - but it fought tooth and nail against releasing the videos of this horror."
The lawsuit came after a long run of issues at the publicly funded lab.
PETA alleges that one monkey died after being given an incorrect dose of insulin.
In 2012, five monkeys died because after becoming dehydrated and being injected with unapproved drugs.
The lab was fined nearly US$12,000 ($20,000) over that case.
in 2008, PETA went undercover at the lab and revealed monkeys showed signs of high stress, including a disturbing case where one monkey had pulled out 90 per cent of its own hair.
