CALIFORNIA, USA — Neuralink, a biotech startup founded by Elon Musk, has declared its commitment to animal welfare following accusations that it subjected monkeys to illegal mistreatment while testing brain implants under research by the company and the University of California, Davis.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a national nonprofit group with more than 17,000 doctor members, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Thursday, Feb. 10, claiming the researchers are violating the federal Animal Welfare Act related to invasive and deadly brain experiments conducted on 23 monkeys.
The PCRM claims that UC Davis received more than $1.4 million from Neuralink to carry out these experiments. The committee is also suing to get photos and video released, claiming that most of the animals had portions of their skulls removed to implant electrodes in their brains as part of Neuralink's development of a "brain machine interface."
The committee also claimed that UC Davis staff failed to provide dying monkeys with adequate veterinary care, used an unapproved substance known as "Bioglue" that killed monkeys by destroying parts of their brains and failed to provide for the "psychological well-being" of monkeys used in experiments.
On Monday, Feb. 14, Neuralink posted a response to the accusations on its company blog. The company said that "it is important to note that these accusations come from people who oppose any use of animals in research," but that "currently, all novel medical devices and treatments must be tested in animals before they can be ethically trialed in humans."
"At Neuralink, we are absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible," the company wrote.
Neuralink ended its partnership with UC Davis in November 2020 and took several of the monkeys back to its testing facilities in northern California for in-house experiments. The company writes that no "injuries occurred at any time to animals housed at UC Davis" while tests were ongoing.
Neuralink does note that several animals were euthanized for research purposes, but the euthanizations were done under controlled circumstances.
"All animal work done at UC Davis was approved by their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) as mandated by Federal law, and all medical and post-surgical support, including endpoint decisions were overseen by their dedicated and skilled veterinary staff," Neuralink wrote. "While the facilities and care at UC Davis did and continue to meet federally mandated standards, we absolutely wanted to improve upon these standards as we transitioned animals to our in-house facilities."
In the response, Neuralink also discusses in detail its current practices to ensure "a company culture of animal-centered discussions" and "company norms [developed] around strong animal welfare advocacy." The company also notes it has never received a citation from the USDA inspections of its facilities and animal care program.
Neuralink also looks to its future in the response, discussing its plans for a more high-tech facility:
"Imagine a troop of macaques running and climbing trees together. One ventures off into a treehouse that has been equipped with RFID scanning, which securely pulls up that individual’s game settings. The animal can play and be reinforced for data collection, just as a human contributing to a clinical trial might. This kind of animal agency requires excellent engineers, behaviorists, and veterinarians working together as a team. We are already in the process of designing and building such a facility that allows exactly this. Doing so is a way for us to give control to our animals and afford them the freedom of choice the same as they would have in their natural world."
The company also states that it looks forward to a day when animals "are no longer necessary for animal research," but, in the meantime, says animals' lives and experiences "should be as vital and naturalistic as possible."
"We will always strive to surpass the industry standard and never stop asking ourselves: “Can we do better for the animals?”, and never forget it is a privilege to work with animals in research," Neuralink wrote. "It is our responsibility as caretakers to ensure that their experience is as peaceful and frankly, as joyful as possible."
Read Neuralink's complete response to the PCRM's accusations.
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