The Food and Drug Administration is buying up young baboons with taxpayer dollars so researchers can infect and kill them for research in Maryland.
White Coat Waste Project has released a new report detailing how the agency issued a $368,626 purchase order on August 31 to buy 20 baboons for pertussis experiments at its Maryland primate laboratory.
An active protocol allows the lab to use up to 48 animals.
Some of the baboons will receive experimental vaccines or antibodies. Others will get no protection at all. Then researchers will pump the bacteria that cause whooping cough into their windpipes and noses.
The primates will be subjected to violent coughing, vomiting, breathing problems, fever, weight loss, nasal discharge, and weeks of illness.
Staff will draw blood and swab noses and throats again and again.
Some of the animals will be killed and dissected so researchers can examine their lungs, windpipes, and lymph nodes.
Hellbound and Down 