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- The title of the film comes from a statement made to The Globe and Mail by the head of the clinic, neurosurgeon Thomas Gennarelli before the raid. He declined to describe his research to the newspaper because, he said, it had “the potential to stir up all sorts of unnecessary fuss …”
- Deborah Blum writes that “it is difficult to put into words just how ugly [this] brief movie is.” The film shows at least one sedated but not anesthetized baboon with his wrists and ankles tied, strapped to an operating table, his shaved head secured with dental cement inside a helmet. A hydraulic device known as Penn 2 slams the baboon’s head from behind, pushing it forward at a 60-degree angle with a force of what the researchers said was up to 1000 g, apparently intended to simulate whiplash.
- After the injury is sustained, the baboon’s head is dislodged from the helmet using a hammer and screwdriver. One sequence shows part of the baboon’s ear being torn off along with the helmet. After pulling the baboon’s head from the helmet, the researcher is heard to laugh, saying: “It’s a boy,” then, “Looks like I left a little ear behind.”
- The footage shows the researchers laughing at injured baboons, performing electrocautery on an apparently conscious baboon, smoking cigarettes and pipes during surgery, and playing loud music as the animals are injured. A researcher is seen holding a seriously injured baboon up to the camera, while others speak to the animal: “Don’t be shy now, sir, nothing to be afraid of,” followed by laughter, and “He says, ‘you’re gonna rescue me from this, aren’t you? Aren’t you?’,” followed by more laughter.
- While one baboon was being injured on the operating table by the hydraulic device, the camera panned to a brain-damaged, drooling monkey strapped into a high chair in a corner of the room, with the words “Cheerleading in the corner, we have B-10. B-10 wishes his counterpart well. As you can see, B-10 is still alive. B-10 is hoping for a good result,” followed by laughter. In another sequence, one researcher is heard to say: “You better hope the … anti-vivisection people don’t get a hold of this film.”
- When PETA made its 26-minute film available, the OPRR initially refused to investigate because the film had been edited from 60 hours of videotape. For over a year PETA refused to release the original footage. When they eventually handed over the unedited material, the OPRR discovered that the footage of the brain damage being inflicted involved just one baboon out of the 150 who had received the Penn 2 injuries. The film gave the impression that the brain-damage scenes involved several animals.
via wikipedia
Posted July 21, 2012 at 3:08pm in peta alf animals experiments ethics upenn philly research science brain damage monkey 12 monkeys
