In light of a new government report exposing “research misconduct” by Deepak Kaushal, director of the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) at Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed), PETA rushed a letter today to city officials urging them to revoke the $10 million in funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) that was approved for the facility in February.

The investigation by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity found Kaushal guilty of “intentionally, knowingly, and/or recklessly falsifying and fabricating” data from a monkey study in published work and on grant applications. The study in question involved infecting monkeys with tuberculosis, treating them with a combination of drugs, and then infecting them with SIV, a primate virus that has failed to be a surrogate model for HIV infection and that leads to severe and painful symptoms. At the experiment’s end, the monkeys were killed.

Even though local residents spoke out overwhelmingly against directing any of the ARPA funding—federal money meant to help the city during the COVID-19 crisis—to the SNPRC, the council was persuaded by Kaushal and others at the center to award it the no-strings-attached funding.

“I urge [the city] to retract all ARPA funds currently slated for Texas Biomed/SNPRC and instead direct those funds to other projects that will benefit the people of San Antonio rather than to this facility, which is currently headed by an individual who has demonstrated no respect for scientific integrity, animal welfare, transparency, or accountability,” primate scientist and PETA Senior Science Advisor Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel writes in the letter to the city.

Research misconduct isn’t the only problem at the SNPRC. In the last decade, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Texas Biomed nearly $26,000 for repeatedly allowing primates to escape from cages and injure themselves and others, including humans. Last year, 159 baboons suffered from painful frostbite so severe that their fingers, toes, or tails had to be amputated because the SNPRC failed to protect them during a winter storm. Primates kept there have also been strangled by door cables and burned by exposed pipes. Despite all this, Texas Biomed has received more than $63 million in taxpayer funds from the National Institutes of Health since 2020.

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