Dear NIH: Bill Maher Has a New Rule—Stop Torturing Monkeys!

Bill Maher’s latest video for PETA calls out monkey torture taking place at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—and by the way, you’re paying for it.

Confused? Watch the Real Time with Bill Maher host break down the cruelty and incompetence in this quick “New Rules” video:

NIH Is Torturing Monkeys—on Your Dime

For the last 13 years, NIH has given $36 million in taxpayer money to Elisabeth Murray, an experimenter who spends her days sawing open monkeys’ skulls, pumping their brains with toxins, and sometimes even sucking out their brains or burning them. Then, as if that weren’t torture enough, she throws the monkeys into a small box and scares them with fake snakes and spiders. Once these fright tests are completed, the animals are then killed or forced to endure other experiments.

“That’s what our government has been doing instead of preparing for a real health crisis—like COVID-19,” Maher says in the video. “That’s what your taxes were paying for instead of ventilators.”

One more time for the people in the back: Animals aren’t lab equipment. They can feel pain in the same way as humans, and just like us, they value their own lives and those of their fellow species members. For instance, monkeys in laboratories have starved themselves rather than subjecting their friends to electric shock. But unlike humans, animals can’t consent to being experimented on. And if they could, they likely wouldn’t agree to be mutilated, poisoned, infected with painful and deadly diseases, burned, electrocuted, shot, addicted to drugs, or psychologically tortured and eventually killed.

“[T]orturing animals is what got us into this mess.”

—Bill Maher

Maher has spoken up for animals in the past, from calling out “douches” wearing Canada Goose to taking on Texas A&M University—aka dogs’ worst enemy. The PETA honorary director has also joined PETA’s call for the public to wake up and recognize that there’s no difference between the conditions on U.S. factory farms and those in “wet markets.”

“[Y]ou can’t trash the environment, including animals, and not have it come back and kill you,” Maher said on an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, filmed from his Los Angeles home. “America’s factory farming is just as despicable as a wet market and just as problematic for our health.”

What You Can Do

Call NIH Director Francis Collins at 301-496-4000 and tell him that animals aren’t laboratory equipment. (As Maher says, please be polite!) You can also take action by sending an e-mail to NIH via our action alert:

Tell NIH to STOP These ‘Monkey Fright’ Experiments

The post Dear NIH: Bill Maher Has a New Rule—Stop Torturing Monkeys! appeared first on PETA.

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