NIH Primate Center Directors

Harvard vows changes after 4th monkey death
Primate center to delay new testing
Carolyn Y. Johnson, Boston Globe
February 29, 2012

Harvard Medical School suspended new experiments at its New England Primate Research Center after a cotton top tamarin monkey died Sunday. It was the fourth monkey to die there under questionable circumstances in less than two years....

In an e-mail addressed to Chin and shared with the Globe, Ronald Desrosiers, the former director of the primate center, objected to the idea that the center’s problems stem from past leadership. He said that the majority of the issues have occurred after the medical school leadership intervened in the primate center.

“Except for the 2010 cage washer incident, NEPRC had an absolutely stellar record... during my 12 years of leadership and we were the model of what an animal research institution should be. Whatever relatively minor issues there were in 2011, they could have and would have been adequately taken care of by the experienced leadership that was in place," Desrosiers wrote. "The recent transgressions since my departure in September of 2011 have nothing to do with the previous leadership."

The NIH Primate Center Directors seem to be a particularly unsavory sort. The previous director of the Wisconsin NIH National Primate Research Center, Joe Kemnitz, has been caught lying to the public and to reporters -- even student reporters -- so very many times that lying must be his primary mode of communication.

And his predecessor, John Hearn, wasn't anyone you would want your daughter dating. Just prior to him skipping town and hiding out in Switzerland, it was discovered that he had run up a giant phone bill for the university while harassing a female employee whom he worried would call attention to his violent behavior.

This was about the same time it was discovered that he and the rest of the staff had been secretly taking monkeys from the Vilas Zoo and selling them and using them in their own horrible and deadly experiments in violation of eight years of multiple written promises to the County that they wouldn't do just that.

What a crew. And these are the leaders, the top dogs, the very best of this nasty cruel unethical pack of tax-dollar-sucking vampires.