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Elon Musk’s brain chip company Neuralink is defending itself against claims that its researchers abused monkeys in the testing of its products.
Neuralink – which hopes to create a revolutionary interface that would allow humans to control devices with their brains – said in a statement on Monday that its research animals were “respected and honored by our team”. The company was responding to allegations that the animals were tortured and left to die in horrific experiments at its facilities.
In a lengthy complaint filed with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) said the research caused “extreme suffering” in its test subjects, who “had their brains mutilated in shoddy experiments and were left to suffer and die”. PCRM is a non-profit advocacy organization that promotes a plant-based diet and alternatives to animal testing.
The complaint targets a partnership between Neuralink and the University of California, Davis that was carried out between 2017 and 2020, in which researchers implanted a device “approximately the size of a quarter” into the skull of macaque monkey test subjects.
Elon Musk’s brain chip company, Neuralink, faces animal abuse claims
An animal welfare group alleges that monkey test subjects endured ‘crude surgeries’ and ‘extreme suffering’
www.theguardian.com