Funded by millions in taxpayer dollars, National Institutes of Health (NIH) experimenter Elisabeth Murray sucks out or burns parts of monkeys’ brains, confines the animals to a metal box, and then terrorizes them with rubber snakes and spiders. PETA is waging a campaign to end these experiments—and you can help.
For more detailed information about the horrors that monkeys in Murray’s laboratory endure, click here.
Electrifying Highway Display Illuminates Atrocities at the National Institutes of Health
November 12, 2024
A cadre of primate protectors shone a light on the violence against monkeys at the National Institutes of Health with a light-up banner on an overpass in Bethesda, Maryland, that read, “NIH Kills Monkeys.”
Monkeys in Elisabeth Murray’s Lab Have Lost Fingertips, Torn Out Their Own Hair, Records Reveal
October 7, 2024
Monkeys in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory suffered from chronic health conditions, deep wounds requiring stitches, and infections at sites where metal devices were surgically implanted into their skulls, veterinary records for 73 of the animals show. PETA received the damning documents after our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit was filed in 2021 and successfully pushed the government to share them. We’ve written to National Institute of Mental Health Acting Director Shelli Avenevoli urging her to shut down Murray’s chamber of horrors immediately. Read more about what the agency tried to hide.
Massive ‘Monkeys’ Lead Protest Outside World’s Largest Neuroscience Conference
October 5, 2024
Two 8-foot-tall crying “monkeys” led animal advocates in a rally outside the Society for Neuroscience 2024 conference at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago. The protesters chanted into megaphones and held signs urging the National Institutes of Health to stop funding Elisabeth Murray and several of her fellow animal-tormenting conference participants, including Harvard University’s Margaret Livingstone and the University of Washington’s Elizabeth Buffalo and Michele Basso.
Victory! Court Rules National Institutes of Health Violated First Amendment Rights of Animal Testing Critics
July 30, 2024
The National Institutes of Health violated the First Amendment right to free speech when it used keyword filtering to block comments on its social media pages from critics of animal experiments, such as those conducted by Elisabeth Murray, a major U.S. court has ruled.
The landmark decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit comes in response to a lawsuit brought by attorneys at the PETA Foundation, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund on behalf of PETA and activists Madeline Krasno and Ryan Hartkopf. Read more.
Portrait of Misery: Activists Plaster Bethesda With Posters Illustrating Beamish’s Story
July 7, 2024
Monkey allies plastered dozens of illustrated posters vividly depicting the story of a monkey named Beamish, one of Elisabeth Murray’s many victims, on poles and other surfaces near the National Institutes of Health and in nearby downtown Bethesda, Maryland.
‘We Need You to Do Better’: Actor James Cromwell Confronts Feds Over Ineffective Animal Experiments
May 30, 2024
Succession actor James Cromwell attended the National Institute of Mental Health’s National Advisory Mental Health Council meeting to urge the agency to stop squandering resources on cruel and ineffective animal experiments, including Elisabeth Murray’s grisly monkey fright tests. Carrying a photo of a monkey named Sam Smith, one of Murray’s prisoners, the Emmy-winning actor presented a petition signed by nearly 60,000 people and a letter from nearly 400 physicians, scientists, and mental health professionals calling on the agency to redirect its resources toward modern, human-relevant research methods and to improve access to mental health care.
In the City of Light, Protesters Drive Hidden Violence of Vivisection out of the Shadows
April 24, 2024
PETA France’s “monkeys” and “rats” unfurled a giant banner featuring a photo of Guinness, one of the monkeys exploited in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory, outside the OFC 2024 conference at France’s Paris Brain Institute to call for an end to her painful and deadly experiments—and all neuroscience experiments on animals. Murray is a frequent organizer of the recurring conference, which brings together experimenters from around the world, many of whom are fellow animal abusers.
PETA’s Massive ‘Spider’ Urges NIMH to Untangle Itself From Bad Science
March 18, 2023
Attendees of the National Institute of Mental Health’s 75th anniversary symposium were met with a shocking sight on the steps of the National Archives Museum: a gigantic inflatable spider accompanied by dozens of PETA supporters, who demanded an end to cruel taxpayer-funded tests on monkeys conducted by government experimenters, including Elisabeth Murray.
PETA Supporters Rally for Animals Outside World’s Largest Neuroscience Convention
November 13, 2023
PETA supporters, led by an 8-foot-tall “crying monkey” representing Beamish, one of the monkeys tormented by National Institutes of Health experimenter Elisabeth Murray, demanded an end to the agency’s funding of her cruel and failed experiments during the Neuroscience 2023 conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The protesters also called for funding cuts to several of her fellow animal-tormenting conference participants—Harvard University’s Margaret Livingstone, Johns Hopkins University’s Shreesh Mysore, and the University of Massachusetts–Amherst’s Agnès Lacreuse.
PETA’s Massive ‘Monkey’ Kicks Off Ad Campaign Blasting NIH
November 9, 2023
In Bethesda, Maryland, PETA’s larger-than-life Beamish mascot greeted National Institutes of Health (NIH) employees arriving at Washington Metro’s Medical Center station as our mobile billboard circled the agency’s campus, broadcasting the stories of the real-life Beamish and other prisoners in Elisabeth Murray’s NIH laboratory. Nearby in Washington, D.C., advertisements on Capital Bikeshare stands demanded that NIH slam the brakes on Murray’s egregiously cruel experiments.
Activists Crash Monkey Tormentor’s Talk in Chicago
September 22, 2023
PETA supporters confronted notorious government experimenter Elisabeth Murray during her keynote address at the Simian Collective conference—an event by and for monkey experimenters to promote the use of these animals in laboratories—with a demand to end her decades-long reign of terror on monkeys.
Rooting for Rocket Raccoon? Help Guard the Galaxy’s Other Vivisection Victims, PETA’s ‘Monkey’ Urges Cosplayers
June 16, 2023
In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, viewers learn how a young Rocket Raccoon escaped his tormentor, the High Evolutionary—but millions of real animals imprisoned in laboratories are far less lucky. Representing his namesake and the dozens of other macaques now languishing in the laboratory of National Institutes of Health experimenter Elisabeth Murray, Beamish the “monkey” urged attendees of Awesome Con in Washington, D.C., to use their greatest superpower—their voice—to speak up for animals like Rocket.
Making Waves in the Sunshine State: ‘Monkey’ Sheds Light on Misery in Elisabeth Murray’s Laboratory
May 12, 2023
A dozen PETA supporters—including one dressed as Beamish, a rhesus macaque imprisoned in the government laboratory of serial monkey tormentor Elisabeth Murray—lined the sidewalk outside The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology in Jupiter, Florida, to protest against Murray’s grisly fright experiments. Inside, Murray spoke at the annual meeting of the Florida Consortium on the Neurobiology of Cognition. The unmissable demonstration grabbed the attention of passing drivers and students on scooters, who honked their horns and rang their bells, respectively, in support.
Beamish the ‘Monkey’ Crashes Tormentor’s Talk at Vanderbilt University
March 22, 2023
A troop of protesters, including Beamish the “monkey,” rallied at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, to expose the pain and trauma that primates endure in the laboratory of experimenter Elisabeth Murray, who was scheduled to give a talk in a building nearby. Beamish’s real-life namesake has been a prisoner of Murray’s laboratory at the National Institutes of Health since 2010.
NIH Pumps Millions of Dollars Into Scofflaw Supplier of Monkeys to Murray’s Laboratory
January 5, 2023
Monkey supplier Alpha Genesis Inc. is so hopelessly incapable of following basic animal welfare laws that the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined it $12,600 in 2017 and issued it an official warning just last month. The company’s scofflaw status, however, doesn’t appear to worry the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which pays it millions each year to fill the laboratory cages of monkey torturers such as Elisabeth Murray. While the company basks in profits snatched from the pockets of unsuspecting taxpayers, monkeys at its facilities have died from trauma, neglect, and freezing temperatures. PETA is calling on NIH to cancel its $17 million in contracts with the notorious primate dealer.
Beamish on the Brain: At Neuroscience Conference, PETA Puts Tortured Monkey’s Story Front and Center
November 14, 2022
As thousands of attendees—many of them monkey experimenters, including Elisabeth Murray herself—streamed into the San Diego Convention Center for the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, PETA circled the building with a mobile billboard featuring distressing footage of Beamish, a monkey currently imprisoned in Murray’s laboratory. Meanwhile, activists distributed leaflets spotlighting the pointless suffering that Beamish and thousands of other monkeys endure in excruciating and deadly brain experiments every year.
Vomiting, Dehydration, and Extreme Weight Loss: Federal Records Expose Agony for More Monkeys in Murray’s Lab
October 27, 2022
Fittingly named after silent film stars, monkeys Chaplin, Chaney, and Lloyd—along with their fellow prisoners Hightop, Skyline, and Spitler—were silenced and their autonomy was stripped away in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory. The six monkeys were deprived of water, restrained via a headpost implanted in their skull, and forced to watch videos of moving animated shapes, “earning” scant droplets of juice only if they looked at certain points on the screen. Read more about the years of suffering that these monkeys endured—and that some are still enduring—for Murray’s ludicrous experiments.
Search Party Blankets Bethesda With ‘MISSING’ Posters in Pursuit of Experimenter’s Moral Compass
August 14, 2022
Elisabeth Murray’s penchant for mutilating and terrorizing monkeys in her laboratory makes it clear that she has lost her sense of moral direction. Concerned community members aided the search for it by plastering “MISSING” posters throughout downtown Bethesda, Maryland, and the area surrounding her condominium community.
PETA’s Roving ‘Rhesus Macaque’ Calls On Metro Riders to Help Put the Brakes on Cruelty
August 11, 2022
Next stop: animal liberation! PETA’s “monkey” mascot Beamish hopped aboard the Metro in Washington, D.C., to share the heart-rending story of his real-life namesake with morning commuters, many of whom were appalled to learn that he was languishing in solitary confinement in a dismal NIH laboratory at that very moment.
Wake-Up Call on Wheels: PETA Broadcasts Mobile Message in Elisabeth Murray’s Neighborhood
July 28, 2022
Blasting footage of Beamish—one of the hundreds of monkeys Elisabeth Murray has cut open, mutilated, and terrorized in her laboratory—PETA’s mobile billboard rolled up in front of Murray’s condominium complex to warn her neighbors of the monkey tormenter in their midst.
Animal Advocates Festoon Murray’s Neighborhood With Flyposters
June 25, 2022
Swimming, playing, roaming outdoors—rhesus macaques delight in many of the same activities that humans do. But while the sunny June days lure humans outside, monkeys in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory remain imprisoned in a sterile fluorescent-lit room, where many of them have been unable to glimpse the outdoors for over a decade. Seeking to grab the attention of cyclists and walkers relishing the warm weather—including perhaps Murray herself—PETA supporters peppered the path near her condo complex with reminders of the soul-crushing torment experienced by monkeys in her laboratory.
‘Monkey’ Turns Heads at D.C.’s Awesome Con
June 4, 2022
Even amid a sea of cosplayers, PETA’s “monkey” mascot Beamish can’t be missed. The plucky primate waved to crowds entering the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to attend Awesome Con—Washington, D.C.’s comic convention—as a human sidekick doled out leaflets telling his heart-rending story to the curious onlookers.
Full-Page Washington Times Ad Spotlights Nick Nack’s Heart-Wrenching Story
May 18, 2022
Years of isolation, painful surgeries, and worthless tests have left Nick Nack so distraught that he rips out his own hair. Not a moment of his life has been his own—not what he eats, where he sleeps, or with whom he interacts. PETA’s ad in The Washington Times gives voice to Nick Nack and the other monkey prisoners of Murray’s laboratory, who are desperate to take back control of their own lives.
Elisabeth Murray Is Doing Junk Science—Even Primate Experimenters Agree!
April 19, 2022
Distraught from years of social isolation, monkeys in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory circle in their cages, rock back and forth, and even rip out their own hair. Experimenting on them won’t tell us the first thing about normal emotional responses in humans—a new study confirms it. Evaluating the effects of solitary confinement on monkeys’ behavior in common laboratory tests, experimenters with the California National Primate Research Center concluded that the results of such tests “may be severely confounded” by keeping monkeys caged alone. Elisabeth Murray, are you paying attention?
PETA’s ‘Monkey’ Mascot Dashes to the National Mall to Inform Runners About Elisabeth Murray’s Lab of Horrors
April 3, 2022
Set against a dazzling backdrop of blooming pink trees, the 2022 Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run in Washington, D.C., attracted 17,000 participants, thousands more spectators—and one “rhesus macaque.” PETA’s roving “monkey” mascot Beamish informed athletes and others on the bustling National Mall about the plight of his real-life namesake, imprisoned just a short car ride away in the laboratory of experimenter Elisabeth Murray at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). In their natural environment, macaques love to roam, climb, and swim—but Beamish has spent the past 14 years at NIMH confined to a cramped steel cage, unable to feel the sun on his back or the cool dirt beneath his feet.
PETA to Prospective Mars Colonizer Elon Musk: Take Elisabeth Murray With You!
March 30, 2022
Elon Musk is dreaming of colonizing Mars, and PETA has found the perfect companion for his mission: fellow monkey tormenter Elisabeth Murray. While the South African billionaire infamously has holes drilled in monkeys’ skulls and has chips implanted in their brains, Murray continues her own meddling in monkeys’ heads, cutting open their skulls and pumping their brains with toxic acid. It’s a match made for Mars—and Earth’s monkeys (and compassionate humans everywhere) would be happy to see them go.
Tormented ‘Monkey’ Brings Beamish’s Story out of the Laboratory, Into the Neighborhood
March 10, 2022
To spread the word about the egregious cruelty and waste of Elisabeth Murray’s $50 million experiments, PETA’s larger-than-life monkey mascot Beamish—named for a real-life rhesus macaque currently imprisoned in her laboratory—greeted Murray’s neighbors as they left her leafy condo complex and headed to work. While Murray perhaps sipped her coffee and perused the newspaper nearby in her spacious residence, the actual Beamish continued to languish in a desolate steel cage barely bigger than his own body.
Callers Demand That NIMH Stop Mutilating Monkeys’ Brains; NIMH Blames Humans With Mental Illness
January 31, 2022
Hundreds of outraged callers kept the phone ringing off the hook at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) when they contacted the agency to decry the appalling and worthless monkey fright experiments of Elisabeth Murray. But rather than taking accountability for the grisly tests—on which NIMH has squandered $50 million and hundreds of monkeys’ lives—an NIMH representative told callers that the agency was forced to brain-damage and terrify monkeys because not enough humans with mental illness, including PTSD, had signed up to be test subjects. It seems that neither Murray nor the minions tasked with defending her indefensible experiments got the memo that there are modern, human-relevant research methods to answer her questions about the brain—no cutting into monkeys’ or humans’ skulls required.
Activists Dragged Off in Handcuffs While Occupying HHS Lobby in Behalf of Tormented Monkeys
January 25, 2022
Chanting, “Elisabeth Murray has blood on her hands!” seven PETA supporters were arrested after refusing to leave the lobby of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) headquarters in protest of Elisabeth Murray’s cruel experiments on monkeys. The protest had begun earlier outside HHS, where PETA’s “monkey” mascot Beamish and other activists unfurled a massive banner demanding that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) end the gruesome tests. NIH, which is overseen by HHS, has poured $50 million in taxpayer funds into these experiments despite their utter irrelevance to humans.
Called Out in the Caller: PETA Slams NIH for Wasting $50 Million on Junk Science
January 21, 2022
Emblazoned across the top of The Daily Caller website, PETA’s large banner ad blasts the National Institutes of Health for squandering millions in taxpayer funds on experimenter Elisabeth Murray’s ghoulish monkey terror tests.
Elisabeth Murray’s Ho-Ho-Horrible Monkey Terror Tests Earn Her Coal for the Holidays
December 23, 2021
Serial monkey tormentor Elisabeth Murray is on PETA’s “naughty” list this year for cutting open, brain-damaging, and traumatizing monkeys. So just in time for Christmas Eve, we teamed up with Santa to send her the perfect stocking stuffer: a bag of coal.
Activists Plaster Poles, Decorate Doorknobs in Murray’s Neighborhood
November 20, 2021
Sweatpants-clad joggers and latte-sipping shoppers spotted posters and leaflets decrying Elisabeth Murray’s gruesome terror tests on monkeys throughout her leafy neighborhood and a nearby shopping complex. In addition to peppering the neighborhood with posters, activists completed the scene by leaving behind door hangers notifying Murray’s neighbors of her grim experiments.
With Protest in Experimenter’s Neighborhood, Activists Hammer Home a Message: End Monkey Terror Tests Now!
September 25, 2021
The call to end experimenter Elisabeth Murray’s ghoulish monkey fright tests came to her street one sunny Saturday morning, when activists staged a peaceful but passionate protest outside her residence. The demonstration hit home with some of her neighbors, who stopped to thank the protesters or raised a fist in solidarity as they jogged by.
PETA Blasts NIH Director for Secretly Greenlighting High-Risk Virus-Engineering Experiments
September 13, 2021
Elisabeth Murray’s worthless and deadly terror tests on brain-damaged macaques are far from the only disturbing experiments to receive National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins’ warped stamp of approval. Following The Washington Post’s explosive revelation that Collins and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci have been secretly approving and funding high-risk “gain-of-function” research—pathogen-engineering experiments that can make deadly viruses even more contagious or virulent—PETA rushed an ad into The Washington Times demanding that the NIH director be booted from his position.
PETA Slaps NIH With Free-Speech Lawsuit After Agency Blocks Criticism of Its Monkey Torture on Social Media
September 9, 2021
Feel like telling the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that its monkey torture tests are garbage? NIH wants you to keep your mouth shut—and it’s apparently willing to violate the First Amendment in order to make that happen. PETA is suing the agency for blocking comments containing words such as “monkey,” “experiment,” “testing,” and “torture” on its social media pages.
Ad: Famed Primatologist Biruté Galdikas Slams NIH for Monkeying Around With Monkeys’ Brains
August 23, 2021
Esteemed primate expert Dr. Biruté Galdikas is outraged that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is wasting her tax dollars to scramble monkeys’ brains for crude, pointless fright experiments. PETA’s hard-hitting full-page ad in The Washington Post quotes her powerful letter to NIH Director Francis Collins: “The world has marched on and left unimaginative repetitive studies of no particular value, like Dr. Murray’s, behind in the dust.”
Bestselling Author and Animal Expert Sy Montgomery Pens Letter to NIH: ‘I Am Shocked’
August 3, 2021
When naturalist and New York Times bestselling author Sy Montgomery caught wind of the ghastly cruelty occurring in National Institutes of Health (NIH) experimenter Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory, she couldn’t remain silent. “I was sickened to learn that the torments [monkeys in Murray’s laboratory] endure include neurotoxic injections, repeated restraint, food and fluid restriction, trauma-inducing psychological tests, and other harms,” she writes in a pointed letter to NIH Director Francis Collins. “I am shocked that this egregious cruelty is occurring at the nation’s premier biomedical research agency.”
Billboard-on-Wheels Drives Nightmare at NIH out of the Shadows
July 31, 2021
The screams of monkeys trapped at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) echoed through the streets of Bethesda, Maryland, as PETA’s attention-grabbing mobile billboard cruised through town. Elsewhere in Bethesda, at NIH, monkeys in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory endure a nightmare that would make anyone scream: Experimenters saw open their skulls, scramble their brains with toxic injections, restrain them for hours at a time, blast puffs of air into their eyes, deprive them of food and fluids, and more.
PETA Blasts the Backward Experiments of Elisabeth Murray in Impossible-to-Miss Ads
July 26, 2021
While science leaps forward with revolutionary technology, including advanced imaging techniques involving consenting humans, National Institutes of Health experimenter Elisabeth Murray remains stuck in the mud of the past. PETA slams her medieval monkey tests—for which she’s burned through $49 million in taxpayer funds without yielding a single treatment for humans—in ads popping up all over Washington, D.C.
Flurry of Fly Posters, Deluge of Door Hangers Blanket NIH Experimenter’s Neighborhood
July 20, 2021
Monkey defenders dropped by National Institutes of Health (NIH) experimenter Elisabeth Murray’s neighborhood and the area near NIH to bedeck telephone poles, neighbors’ doors, and sidewalks with a message in behalf of macaques imprisoned and exploited in Murray’s ghastly fright experiments.
Bolstered by 179,000 Signatures, Activists Bring Home a Message to NIH Director Collins
July 7, 2021
A troop of primates—one a statue, the others human—converged in Maryland for a peaceful demonstration outside the home of NIH Director Francis Collins, urging him to end the exploitation and imprisonment of rhesus macaques for experimenter Elisabeth Murray’s ghoulish and crude monkey terror tests. Covered head to toe with the signatures of more than 179,000 opponents of these barbaric experiments, PETA’s larger-than-life macaque statue served as the protest’s solemn mascot.
Giant ‘Spider’ With a Message Descends on HHS: Arachno to Monkey Terror Tests!
May 25, 2021
Flanked by chanting protesters, PETA’s eight-legged behemoth appeared on the concrete plaza outside the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the National Institutes of Health (NIH). At NIH, experimenter Elisabeth Murray uses fake spiders of her own to terrify trapped macaques whose brains she has damaged with toxins. The amount of suffering endured by the hundreds of monkeys she’s killed (costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, without producing a single treatment for humans) eclipses even PETA’s massive arachnid.
PETA’s Birthday Gift to NIH Director Is a Compelling Reason to End Monkey Tests
April 13, 2021
NIH Director Francis Collins, a devoted Christian, cites C.S. Lewis as a major influence—so PETA sent him a compilation of the prominent Christian thinker’s essays, Compelling Reason, for his birthday on April 14. Contained in the book, Lewis’ 1947 essay “Vivisection,” a searing condemnation of experiments on animals, offers yet another compelling reason why Collins should end NIH’s monkey fright tests.
Elisabeth Murray’s Latest Experiment Shapes Up to Be Nonsense, PETA Reveals
March 24, 2021
Serial animal tormentor Elisabeth Murray has taken on a (not-so-)burning question with $17 million of your tax money: Do monkeys think that cartoon shapes have feelings? PETA’s blog post about her latest experiment—which involved restraining macaques and depriving them of water to make them cooperate—demonstrates that it’s time for her and the National Institutes of Health to shape up and stop wasting money and lives on nonsensical experiments on monkeys.
PETA Blog: Murray’s Medieval Monkey Tests Should Be Tossed in the Trash Bin of History
March 4, 2021
With just a tap or a click, you can chat in real time with someone on the other side of the planet, check in on astronauts on the International Space Station via a live video feed from space, or order a to-go coffee from your favorite java hut. But at the National Institutes of Health—supposedly the world’s premier medical research agency—monkey tormentor Elisabeth Murray is still strapping macaques into restraint chairs that were developed in the 1950s. PETA has a message for animal experimenters like her: It’s time to ditch the primitive tests and join the 21st century.
PETA Ad Starkly Contrasts the Rich Lives of Macaques in Their Natural Habitat With the Lives of Those Suffering at NIH
February 24, 2021
In nature, rhesus macaques spend their days exploring woodlands, devouring delicious fruits and seeds, grooming one another, swimming, and leaping from branch to branch. Meanwhile, in laboratories like Elisabeth Murray’s at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), monkeys just like them are subject to experimenters’ whims for their entire lives—trapped in small metal cages and unable to explore, socialize, forage for treats, or do anything else that matters to them. In Washington, D.C., viewers tuning in to the news saw the lives of the free animals vividly juxtaposed with those of captive macaques during the airing of PETA’s ad on CBS and NBC.
PETA’s Pandemic Present to NIH, NIMH Directors Is a Mask With a Message
February 16, 2021
There’s no masking the truth about Elisabeth Murray’s experiments on brain-damaged macaques: They’re inexcusably cruel and scientifically nonsensical. PETA sent National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins and National Institute of Mental Health Director Joshua Gordon face coverings featuring a simple message—end animal experiments!—to encourage them to mask up and own up to the unjustifiability of tormenting monkeys in these tests.
PETA Blog Exposes the Crooked Branches and Twisted Roots of Elisabeth Murray’s ‘Family Tree’
February 4, 2021
In the four decades that Elisabeth Murray has been tormenting and killing monkeys, she’s taught her bloody craft to at least 21 people—and the poisoned apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Murray’s “children” have gone on to inject viruses and chemicals into monkeys’ brains, starve and drug mice, and addict rats to cocaine and alcohol. She herself is the speciesist academic spawn of notorious experimenter Mortimer Mishkin, whose monstrously cruel experiments involved inflicting brain damage in monkeys and lobotomizing them.
Infographic Highlights Waste of Animal Lives, Taxpayer Money at ‘National Institutes of Horrors’
January 5, 2021
If you had been one of the more than 568,000 animals imprisoned or used at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Maryland campuses in 2019, you may have found yourself baked to death because of a malfunctioning heating system, denied post-surgical pain relief, killed because you were accidentally fed the wrong diet, or stuck in a room with the lights on continuously for five months. NIH funnels more than $17.6 billion into experiments on animals every year, among them the worthless and cruel tests conducted on macaques by Elisabeth Murray.
PETA Video Exposes NIMH’s Sickening Legacy of Monkey Terror Experiments
December 5, 2020
Experimenters at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)—or should it be called the “National Institute of Monkey Hell”?—conducted tests on baby monkeys that included tearing them away from their mothers and locking them in cages barely bigger than their bodies. As PETA’s video shows, experimenters also heavily sedated the mothers and watched as the confused and terrified babies frantically tried to wake them up. PETA was able to put an end to these experiments on baby monkeys in 2015, but NIMH—a part of the National Institutes of Health—is still terrifying monkeys in the laboratory of experimenter Elisabeth Murray.
PETA’s Massive Banner on the Beltway Urges NIH to Give the Red Light to Monkey Experiments
November 24, 2020
On a bridge over the Capital Beltway, less than a mile from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), activists grabbed the attention of morning commuters—and, surely, NIH—with a massive banner urging the agency to end Elisabeth Murray’s barbaric fright experiments on monkeys. Many passing rush-hour motorists honked their support for PETA’s unmissable message.
PETA Exposes: Elisabeth Murray, NIH Heads Rake in Big Bucks to Torment Animals
November 3, 2020
Wish you made $337,000 a year? You would if you were Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, tasked with overseeing Elisabeth Murray’s terror tests on monkeys and other painful, useless animal experiments. Francis Collins, who oversees even more pointless experiments on thousands of animals every year as director of the National Institutes of Health, and Murray herself also make sums tidy enough to put them in the top 10% of wage earners in the U.S.—and their salaries are coming out of taxpayer pockets like yours. Get the details.
‘Chalktivists’ to National Institute of Mental Health Director: ‘End the Monkey Torture’
October 31, 2020
Chalk it up to their dedication to monkeys: Activists left a pointed message for Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), on the sidewalks and streets near his home, urging him to end Elisabeth Murray’s ghoulish fright tests on monkeys. NIMH is the part of NIH in which Murray conducts these tests.
Student Activist to NIH: Modernize Your Neuroscience, End Tests on Animals
October 31, 2020
Writing for an NIH-sponsored essay contest about ethics and neuroscience innovation, Students Against Speciesism (SOS) activist Presley Hill condemned experiments on nonconsenting animals, such as those on brain-damaged monkeys in NIH experimenter Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory. “Neuroscience is the future, and the future is now—experimenting on animals for medicine is an irrelevant practice given the access we have to technology and past research,” she wrote. “Science cannot progress if we continue to rely on outdated, unethical methods.”
Tech-Savvy Teen Develops Video Game for PETA, Urges Murray to Declare ‘Game Over’ on Her Experiments
October 14, 2020
Players of California high school student Archit Kumar’s gripping new video game control an animated monkey who dashes over tables and hops barrels of toxins in a desperate bid for freedom from Murray’s laboratory. The game draws attention to the plight of the unwilling players in her real-life experiments: the countless monkeys she has tormented in her decades of cruel tests. Check out Kumar’s game here.
© Archit KumarBlog Post Breaks Down NIH Waste, Cruelty by the Numbers
October 12, 2020
Monkeys like Wilfork, Gronk, and Jaws who suffer in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory aren’t the only ones tormented at NIH: Annually, the agency imprisons or experiments on over 4,000 monkeys and hundreds of thousands of other animals at its Maryland campus. NIH wastes billions in taxpayer dollars funding failed animal experiments like Murray’s every year. Get the numerical breakdown.
Primatologists, Psychiatrists, Other Experts Slam ‘Immeasurably Cruel’ Monkey Experiments in Video
October 1, 2020
Describing them as “immeasurably cruel,” “outdated and barbaric,” and “the stuff of horror movies,” the experts whose statements are featured in this video roundly condemn the fright experiments on monkeys at the National Institutes of Health on both scientific and ethical grounds. Read the experts’ full statements here.
Former Primate Experimenter Criticizes ‘Limited Benefits,’ ‘Considerable Harms’ of Fright Tests in Washington Examiner Ad
September 29, 2020
PETA’s ad in the Washington Examiner features the words of John Gluck, Ph.D., a professor and former primate experimenter, who says of Murray’s horrendous and wasteful monkey fright tests, “It is concerning that … these experiments continue at the nation’s most prestigious research facility.”
PETA Denounces Scary NIH Monkey Experiments, Government Waste With Bikeshare Ads on Capitol Hill
September 28, 2020
In the era of social distancing, PETA’s ads on Capital Bikeshare stands get up close and personal right where it counts: in the seat of U.S. government on Capitol Hill, where decisions about NIH funding are made. The agency’s scarily cruel fright experiments on monkeys—which the ads point out have sucked up $36 million in government funds—have been going on for three decades, despite being irrelevant to human illness.
In Video, Student Activists Bring to Life Beamish’s Heart-Wrenching Story of Suffering
September 24, 2020
Activists with PETA’s youth-led Students Opposing Speciesism (SOS) program gave voice to tormented monkey Beamish, whose skull was cut open and whose brain was mutilated before he was trapped in a small metal box and terrified with lifelike rubber spiders and snakes. Macaques like him have been enduring this fate in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory for over three decades.
Video Spotlights Celebrities Who Have Spoken Out for Monkeys in Murray’s Laboratory
September 9, 2020
Lights … camera … action! In this compilation video, PETA puts the spotlight on the famous figures who have lent their voices to the campaign against monkey fright experiments at NIH—from Real Time host Bill Maher to award-winning actors James Cromwell and Anjelica Huston.
PETA Scientist Pens Pointed Scientific Critique of NIH’s Monkey Terror Tests
September 1, 2020
In her in-depth scientific critique of Elisabeth Murray’s monkey fright experiments at NIH, PETA scientist Dr. Katherine Roe explains the suffering that these tests cause, their inapplicability to humans, and the various animal-free alternatives that actually benefit humans with mental illness. Read her full critique here.
Mobile Billboard Takes Heartbreaking Footage of Murray’s Experiments to the Streets
August 31, 2020
Broadcasting footage of the terrified monkeys used in Elisabeth Murray’s gruesome experiments, PETA’s mobile billboard circled NIH and the neighborhoods of Murray and NIH Director Francis Collins, spreading awareness of the cruel tests.
Actor James Cromwell Takes On ‘American Horror Story’ at NIH in Message to Agency’s Employees
August 26, 2020
Over 10,000 NIH employees received a voicemail from Emmy Award–winning star of FX’s American Horror Story James Cromwell, in which he urges them to ask Director Francis Collins to end the agency’s terror tests on monkeys. “[Elisabeth] Murray’s so-called ‘research’ has gone unchecked for 30 years,” Cromwell says in the message. “How many monkeys have died for her hideous pseudo-science? How many human lives could be saved if we stopped funding this madness?”
PETA’s Christian Outreach Division Appeals to NIH Director Francis Collins’ Christian Values in Bethesda Magazine Ad
August 21, 2020
In its ad in Bethesda Magazine—which features the letter that PETA’s Christian outreach division, LAMBS, previously sent NIH Director Francis Collins—LAMBS urges Collins to follow Jesus’ example of compassion and mercy by ending NIH’s painful monkey fright tests.
In Video, ‘Students Opposing Speciesism’ Condemns Terror Tests on Monkeys Like Guinness
August 11, 2020
A video from the PETA-backed youth movement Students Opposing Speciesism calls attention to the suffering of monkeys like Guinness, who was cut open, inflicted with brain damage, and terrorized in Elisabeth Murray’s NIH laboratory. “Experiments like these wouldn’t be acceptable if performed on a human, and it’s speciesist to think they are acceptable when performed on any other animal,” the video points out.
PETA Urges NIH Employees to ‘Demand Better’ in Facebook Ad
July 23, 2020
PETA’s ad just for National Institutes of Health (NIH) employees features the heartbreaking image of Wilfork—one of the many monkeys Elisabeth Murray has tormented in her laboratory over the past three decades—and urges the employees to e-mail us to find out how they can help animals like him.
PETA Tells Murphy’s Story of Being Treated as a Test Tube in Elisabeth Murray’s Laboratory
July 20, 2020
PETA’s heartrending illustrated video tells the story of Murphy, a monkey in NIH experimenter Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory who was torn away from his mother as a baby, subjected to invasive surgery in which his skull was cut open and part of his brain was suctioned out, and terrified with realistic spiders and snakes.
Elisabeth Murray’s Nightmare for Monkeys Exposed in Areawide Ad Blitz
July 14, 2020
PETA’s attention-grabbing mobile billboard drove through the Bethesda, Maryland, neighborhoods of experimenter Elisabeth Murray and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins and past NIH to warn people about Murray’s ghoulish monkey fright experiments. Ads pointing out the $36 million in taxpayer funds that she has wasted on these tests also went up on Capital Bikeshare stands around Washington, D.C., and D.C. viewers of NBC, CBS, and ABC caught an airing of our TV ad about the cruel experiments.
Starved, Isolated, Brain-Damaged, and More—Blog Exposes the Scariest Things Monkeys Endure in Murray’s Laboratory
July 13, 2020
Being experimented on in Elisabeth Murray’s lab would be terrifying—a section of your skull would be carved out, toxins would be injected into your brain, you’d be trapped in an inescapable metal box, and more. Read 10 reasons why these experiments are terrifying for the macaques locked in her laboratory.
‘WANTED’ Posters Demanding an End to Monkey Experiments Hit Bus Shelters Near National Institutes of Health
July 12, 2020
Bus riders in the Washington, D.C., area will want Elisabeth Murray’s experiments to end after seeing the frightened face of one of the many monkeys she has tormented in her experiments on “WANTED” posters that popped up at bus shelters near the National Institutes of Health.
Activists Adoorn Homes in Murray’s Neighborhood With a Message: Your Neighbor Torments Monkeys
July 2, 2020
Activists spread the word to Elisabeth Murray’s neighbors about the “monkey fright night” in her laboratory with door hangers that detail the pain and terror that monkeys have endured in her experiments for over three decades.
Documents Reveal More Misery for Monkeys in Elisabeth Murray’s Pain Factory
June 25, 2020
PETA has obtained documents from NIH revealing that in addition to being terrorized with fake spiders, monkeys in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory are subjected to multiple craniotomies (brain surgeries), repeated sedation and restraint, starvation to force them to cooperate, and more. PETA filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture alleging what we believe are serious violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act.
Activists Blanket National Institute of Mental Health Director’s Neighborhood With Fliers Calling Out Murray’s Experiments
June 23, 2020
The neighbors of Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, have a supporter of monkey torture in their midst—and it’s secret no longer, thanks to fliers posted around his neighborhood calling out the monkey fright experiments that he allows at his institution.
PETA Urges American Psychological Association President: Study Elisabeth Murray’s Brain!
June 23, 2020
PETA wrote a letter to American Psychological Association President Sandra Shullman urging her to include a study of Elisabeth Murray’s brain in an upcoming issue of its journal Behavioral Neuroscience, which Murray will be co-editing. PETA proposes that the non-invasive study—which, unlike Murray’s terror tests on monkeys, would actually be human-relevant—compare Murray’s brain activity while she looks at a heartbreaking photo of one of the monkeys she torments to that of a sample of the empathetic 52% of Americans who oppose animal experimentation.
PETA Urges James Bond Producer Barbara Broccoli to Help Monkeys Named After Characters in the Film Franchise
June 18, 2020
In our letter to Barbara Broccoli, PETA calls on the James Bond producer to condemn the National Institutes of Health’s fright experiments on monkeys, in which animals named after Goldfinger, Oddjob, Jaws, Le Chiffre, and other Bond villains are mutilated, tormented, and killed.
Poster-Hanging Activists Tell Elisabeth Murray: An End to Your Experiments is ‘WANTED’
June 12, 2020
Elisabeth Murray’s experiments on monkeys are so cruel, they should be criminal—yet instead of stopping them, the government funds them. Activists called Murray out for her cruelty with “WANTED” posters that they hung on lampposts, telephone poles, and other places in the Washington, D.C., area.
Activists Chalk Elisabeth Murray’s Neighborhood for Monkeys
June 4, 2020
Armed with washable blue spray chalk and stencils, activists left Elisabeth Murray an unmistakable message on roads and sidewalks in her neighborhood: “End Monkey Fright Tests!”
PETA’s Christian Outreach Division Urges NIH Director to Be Merciful and End Monkey Fright Experiments
June 4, 2020
After National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins, who identifies as Christian, was awarded the 2020 Templeton Prize for his work integrating science and faith, PETA’s Christian outreach division, LAMBS, sent him a letter urging him to emulate Christ’s compassion by ending Elisabeth Murray’s cruel monkey fright experiments at NIH.
Bill Maher Joins PETA’s Call for NIH to Stop Torturing Monkeys NOW
May 28, 2020
Instead of preparing for a real health crisis (e.g., COVID-19), NIH is spending millions in taxpayer dollars frightening monkeys with rubber snakes. Political commentator, comedian, and Real Time host Bill Maher breaks down the hypocrisy in his latest “New Rules” video for PETA and explains how you can take action to help.
Elisabeth Murray’s Protocols Expose Additional Mistreatment of Monkeys in NIH Laboratory
May 26, 2020
PETA received 67 pages of documents in response to our Freedom of Information Act request to the National Institutes of Health for copies of Elisabeth Murray’s experimental protocols. These show her written intentions to mutilate, experiment on, and kill monkeys in her laboratory. Read the 10 things you should know about these experiments.
PETA Calls Out NIH With Online Ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post
May 14, 2020
Ads alerting taxpayers to the millions of dollars that NIH wastes tormenting monkeys with rubber spiders went live on the websites of two of the most widely circulated newspapers in the U.S., The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Scientist Condemns Monkey Fright Experiments in Mental Health Awareness Month Op-Ed
May 13, 2020
In her op-ed for Mental Health Awareness Month, PETA scientist Emily Trunnell calls out the National Institute of Mental Health for wasting funds on cruel and ineffective tests, such as Murray’s fright experiments on monkeys and the forced swim test on mice, while millions of Americans suffer from mental health conditions exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Tax dollars should be spent on modern, human-relevant research methods that offer real hope,” she writes, “not on senselessly terrorizing animals.”
Anjelica Huston Calls on NIH to Stop Terrifying Monkeys
May 5, 2020
When PETA showed Hollywood A-lister Anjelica Huston footage from NIH’s horrific and wasteful “monkey fright” experiments, she knew that she had to take action. The PETA honorary director wrote a letter to NIH Director Francis Collins, asking him to stop funding these cruel experiments and pointing out that in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s more important than ever to ensure that our country is making smart scientific and fiscal decisions.
PETA Scientist Slams Wasteful Monkey Fright Experiments in Op-Ed
April 29, 2020
Pointing out that our tax dollars could be better spent combating the shortage of basic medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic, PETA scientist Katherine Roe writes that Elisabeth Murray’s monkey fright experiments are not only irrelevant to humans but also shockingly cruel.
PETA Urges Congress to Cut Crappy ‘Monkey Fright’ Experiments With Toilet Paper Delivery
April 22, 2020
With toilet paper in high demand during the COVID-19 lockdown, PETA sent members of Congress each a specialty roll with the message “$36 Million Down the Toilet for NIH Monkey Fright Experiments. Wipe It Out!”
PETA Rolls Into Murray’s Neighborhood With a Drive-By Protest
April 22, 2020
Driving cars emblazoned with the message “End Monkey Fright Tests!” a caravan of PETA protesters honked their horns outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) headquarters, the home of NIH Director Francis Collins, and the home of government monkey experimenter Elisabeth Murray. Neighbors who were homebound as a result of COVID-19 came out to observe the ruckus.
PETA Shares an Open Letter to NIH Officials From Monkeys Suffering in Murray’s Experiments
April 16, 2020
The directors of the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health complained of the stress and anxiety of the COVID-19 lockdown. Twenty-three monkeys trapped in Elisabeth Murray’s laboratory—who experience the stress and frustration of confinement and isolation every day—wrote them a letter.
With People in ‘Lockdown,’ PETA Launches Ad Blitz on Social Media
April 2, 2020
As more people stayed home to avoid spreading the highly contagious coronavirus and spent more time online, PETA launched an ad blitz on social media focused on Elisabeth Murray’s cruel and wasteful experiments. Even as the world awaits cures for deadly diseases, NIH squanders research money by sucking out parts of monkeys’ brains and then scaring them with fake “snakes” and “spiders.”
Government Experimenter Fears Images From Cruel Lab Will Get Into ‘Wrong Hands’
March 17, 2020
In an interview uncovered by PETA, experimenter Elisabeth Murray let it slip that she doesn’t want taxpayers who care about animals—and paid for her experiments—to see what happens to vulnerable monkeys in her laboratory, saying, “You know, to be honest with you, we don’t usually take photos of that sort of thing because we are all afraid they’ll fall into the wrong hands.”
PETA Supporters Protest NIH Monkey Experiments
March 5, 2020
Brandishing blown-up images of monkeys used and abused in Elisabeth Murray’s experiments, PETA protesters descended on the Department of Health & Human Services building to demand an end to the tests.
PETA Neuroscientist Calls on NIH and HHS to Pull the Plug on Monkey Fright Experiments
February 24, 2020
In a letter to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, PETA scientist Katherine Roe made the scientific and ethical argument for pulling the plug on Elisabeth Murray’s “monkey fright” experiments. PETA’s factsheet on the experiments provides a description of what Murray does to monkeys in her laboratory and why the experiments are catastrophically flawed.
PETA Releases Never-Before-Seen Video of Government ‘Monkey Fright’ Experiments
February 24, 2020
After receiving 43 hours of never-before-seen video of cruel “monkey fright” experiments carried out at the National Institutes of Health by government experimenter Elisabeth Murray, PETA publicized footage from the twisted tests on its website.