{"id":3764,"date":"2023-01-09T04:59:56","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T10:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3764"},"modified":"2023-03-21T02:26:46","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T07:26:46","slug":"revealed-us-allowing-long-tailed-macaque-imports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3764","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Revealed: US allowing long-tailed macaque imports despite risk of disease<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>US authorities are continuing to allow imports of long-tailed macaques from Cambodia, despite\u00a0revelations\u00a0that deadly pathogenic agents, including one deemed to be a bioterrorism risk, are entering the country with primates and recent charges of\u00a0illegal trafficking\u00a0of wild macaques falsely labeled as captive-bred into the US biomedical industry from Cambodia.<br \/>\nAnimal rights campaigners are urging the US government to stop the \u201ccruel trade\u201d, saying it\u2019s impossible to prove provenance and that the risk of disease is significant.<br \/>\n\u201cThe monkey trafficking trade is a substantive threat to public health, it\u2019s only a matter of time before a recognized or novel pathogen sparks a new pandemic. The CDC is meant to be protecting the public, not bringing diseases into the country, jeopardizing public health,\u201d said primatologist Dr Lisa Jones-Engel.<br \/>\nSources confirm that 720 long-tailed macaques were transported on a Maleth-Aero flight leaving\u00a0Cambodia\u00a0on 28 December and arriving in Dulles, Washington, a day later. About 360 primates were then transported by road to Charles River Laboratories in Houston, a large US importer and user of primates.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s unclear where the remaining 360 macaques were transported to.<br \/>\nCharles River\u00a0has previously stated that they may import animals \u201ccarrying infectious agents capable of causing disease in humans\u201d. Charles River did not respond to requests for comment.<br \/>\nDocuments obtained by\u00a0Peta\u00a0and revealed by the Guardian showed highly pathogenic agents entered the US with monkeys imported from Asia between 2018 and 2021, including at least\u00a0six cases of\u2002Burkholderia pseudomallei\u00a0in macaques from Cambodia.<br \/>\nB\u00a0Pseudomallei causes melioidosis, a rare but fatal disease in humans and is a\u00a0tier 1 select agent\u00a0with potential as a bioterrorism weapon.\u00a0B\u00a0Pseudomallei\u00a0was, for the first time ever, detected in soil and water in Mississippi in 2022.<br \/>\nIn November, the US Department of Justice charged two Cambodian officials, including Cambodia\u2019s second-highest-ranking wildlife official, Masphal Kry, and the owner of Vanny Bio-Research, a Cambodian macaque supplier, with illegal trafficking of wild macaques into the US research industry.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2023\/jan\/08\/us-long-tailed-macaque-imports-disease-risks\">Theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US authorities are continuing to allow imports of long-tailed macaques from Cambodia, despite\u00a0revelations\u00a0that deadly pathogenic agents, including one deemed to be a bioterrorism risk, are entering the country with primates and recent charges of\u00a0illegal trafficking\u00a0of wild macaques falsely labeled as captive-bred into the US biomedical industry from Cambodia. Animal rights campaigners are urging the US [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4010,2399,4009,4012,1162,4008,4011,1603],"class_list":["post-3764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-biomedicine","tag-disease","tag-illegal-trafficking","tag-import","tag-long","tag-long-tailed-macaque","tag-pathogen","tag-tailed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8177,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764\/revisions\/8177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}