Thanks to Congress passing and continually improving the Animal Welfare Act, every year we get hard numbers on where primate abuse in medical experiments is most rampant.

The 2017 Numbers

The good: There are ten U.S. states in which no non-human primates are being trapped and abused in medical testing, and we’re working to expand that list. If you live in one of those states, be proud of that fact!

The 10 worst: The ten worst comprise a stunning 78% of the U.S. total. In these 9 states and 1 territory, there are 79,429 non-human primates suffering in captive medical testing. That’s out of 101,439 non-human primates used in total in 2017.

• Top 3 worst: The worst offenders in 2017 were Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin.

  • Taken together, these three states use more than 1/3rd of all primates in US facilities.

  • Louisiana and Wisconsin are each home to a National Primate Research Center (NPRC), and house 5,228 and 8,412 primates, respectively.

  • Massachusetts made the list because it’s home to Charles River, the largest animal breeding and testing facility in the U.S. private sector.

About this data:

• These numbers come from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Annual Report of Research Facility (Form 7023) data, which are forms submitted by facilities nationwide to APHIS.

• The numbers used here are a total across all categories. In other words, our numbers include both the number of primates caged in facilities (such as for breeding, or future testing, called Cat B) and for ones being used in experiments (Categories C, D, & E). Here’s more on how those categories work, too.

• These numbers are for primates held/used for testing in any setting, including ones held in government facilities (such as the network of National Primate Research Centers), educational institutions, and private-sector entities like breeders and private labs.

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