The deal involved two companies, both of which could not have sounded more unimportant: an air carrier called #Skybus Jet Cargo and a #Delaware -based firm, International #Logistics Support, which had arranged the flight. But, ultimately, the deal between the two companies fell through. The plane never took off. And shortly after, International Logistics Support sued Skybus for damages in a #Miami court. With the resulting 300-plus pages of court documents, I was able to piece together these basics.
Still, there were big holes in the picture. For instance, who purchased the animals? How many were there? What species? (My best guess was long-tailed macaques, which are commonly sourced from Mauritius.) Where—which lab or labs—were the monkeys supposed to end up? And why, exactly, didn’t the flight take off as planned?
So I kept digging. I read everything I could find about the case. I submitted public records requests to the Centers for #DiseaseControl and Prevention, the National Institutes of #Health, the Fish and #Wildlife Service, and the United States Department of Agriculture, all of which oversee nonhuman primate trade, transport, and research. I asked #animalrights groups, government officials, and academics if they had any information about the case. I reached out to the companies involved, only to conduct a series of fairly fruitless interviews with the owner of International Logistics Support, a guy named Matthew Block, who, it turns out, is something of an infamous character among animal rights groups. From nearly everyone else? Crickets.
Navigating the monkey business, I learned the hard way, is a bit like navigating a, well, jungle.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/06/animals-testing-monkey-primate-shortage-covid-monkeypox-future-pandemic-vaccines/ #usa #covid-19 #china #pandemic #pfizer #moderna #johnsonandjohnson #vaccination #science #india #hiv #animalcruelty #peta #aids
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