Doctors Group Files Complaints, Asks Oregon Health & Science University to Shut Down Invasive Reproductive Experiment on Primates

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed complaints with Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Institutes of Health today, April 22, 2025, asking for an invasive reproductive experiment on nonhuman primates at Oregon National Primate Research Center to be shut down.

The study, which has received $525,000 from the NIH and will continue through August 2027, purports to investigate how chronic tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) use affects testicle size, sperm health, and male fertility.

For the experiment, the primates are given THC and put into restraint cages where researchers use electroejaculation to collect semen from them 18 times in 70 days.

“This experiment is a grotesque violation of both scientific ethics and animal well-being, said Janine McCarthy, MPH, science policy program manager for the Physicians Committee. “Forcing nonhuman primates into repeated restraint and electroejaculation to study the effects of THC on fertility is not only cruel—it’s scientifically unnecessary. We already know enough from human clinical studies to advise people against THC use to safeguard their reproductive health. Subjecting intelligent, social animals to this kind of suffering under the guise of research is indefensible,” she said.

The study violates the Animal Welfare Act’s mandate that experiments must assure that discomfort and pain to animals will be limited to that which is unavoidable for the conduct of scientifically valuable research, and the Public Health Service Policy’s requirement that replacement of animals be considered, the Physicians Committee complaints say.

The new complaints come as OHSU is attempting a merger with Legacy Health. Citing OHSU’s long history of federal Animal Welfare Act violations and useless experiments, the Physicians Committee, a national nonprofit with 17,000 doctor members, has been calling for OHSU’s primate research facility to be closed before an anticipated takeover of Legacy Health.

Recently, the Physicians Committee lauded a Community Review Board after it voted unanimously to reject the merger. A final decision will be made by the Oregon Health Authority’s Health Care Market Oversight Program, which was established by law in 2021 to review health care business deals and address the potential negative impacts of consolidation.

Founded in 1962, the primate research center, one of seven left in the United States, is located in Beaverton and houses more than 5,000 monkeys. Between 2014 and 2022, it violated the federal Animal Welfare Act more than 30 times. Records show pregnant monkeys have been injected with nicotine to damage their unborn babies, and in 2020, an employee scalded two monkeys to death in a washing system because he reportedly didn’t see them in the cage. More recently, in 2023, a 2-day-old monkey was crushed by a sliding glass door and had to be euthanized.

In late March, Gov. Tina Kotek asked leaders at OHSU to figure out how to close its primate research center.

Over 85% of more than 2,000 respondents polled in September 2024 in a Physicians Committee/Morning Consult survey agreed that animal-based research should be phased out in support of superior methods that do not use animals.

In contrast to animal experimentation, modern and versatile human-relevant methods, such as tissue chips, organoids, computational modeling, and high-throughput screening, have proven effective in drug development and disease modeling.

“Research must prioritize scientific rigor and humane methods,” McCarthy said, “and the ongoing reproductive experiment at OHSU fails on both counts. It’s time to move away from antiquated methods and invest in modern, human-specific science that respects both people and animals.”