Neuroscience experiments at Harvard involving the eyelid suturing and maternal separation of infant monkeys has been seen as important by some scientists, but cruel by others.
would highlight this work is deeply troubling to Hobaiter, who also serves as the vice president for communications for the International Primatological Society. Decades of research have shown how critical the mother-child bond is in nonhuman primates, she says. Orphaned animals “shut down socially. … In some cases, they never recover”—to say nothing of the impact on the mothers. Livingstone’s recent paper, she says, adds nothing meaningful to our understanding of primate behavior.
Last week, Katherine Roe, a former experimental psychologist who studied brain development in children and who now serves as the chief of science advancement and outreach at PETA, sent letters to Harvard and two NIH agencies. She called Livingstone’s work inhumane and unscientific, and asked the institutions to end their support for it. “The long-term harms that these experiments are causing the mothers and the babies far outweigh any potential benefit to humans,” Roe says.
The social media storm is taking its toll, Livingstone says. “I’ve become the target of increasingly hostile harassment, and I am seriously fearful for my own and my family’s safety.” She says she has received “violent, threatening, and obscene” calls and emails. Harvard released aon Friday condemning these “personal attacks.” It has not responded to further requests for comment.
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