Escaped primates open can of worms for South Carolina’s Alpha Genesis research lab

With four primates still on the loose after 43 of them escaped on Nov. 6 from the Alpha Genesis Inc. research laboratory in South Carolina, the Low Country facility has come under intense scrutiny.

Animal rights groups have cited the company’s history of violations and previous monkey breakouts; a member of Congress has called for an inquiry into its oversight by multiple federal agencies; and residents voiced concern the furry fugitives might spread disease throughout their community.

On top of it all, Alpha Genesis founder and CEO Gregory Westergaard told ABC News his company is investigating whether the release of the monkeys was “an intentional act” by an employee.

The quest for freedom by the pack of young female rhesus macaques coincides with the rapid expansion of the 100-acre Alpha Genesis facility and is casting light on a disruption in the U.S. medical research industry that sounds like a plot for a science fiction thriller. A 2023 report sponsored by the National Institutes of Health warned of a crisis involving the Chinese government that “undermines the security of the nation’s biomedical research enterprise.”

A view of the cages in the research facility where forty-three rhesus macaque monkeys escaped from in Yemassee, South Carolina, on Nov. 8, 2024.
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The case of the absconding primates has also raised questions about why the amount of federal contracts received by the testing and breeding operation has jumped more than 160% since 2021. According to USASpending.gov, a government website that tracks federal spending, the company has been granted $19 million in federal contracts this year alone.

“It’s shocking how much money is being spent on testing primates,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told ABC News.

Mace’s district encompasses the Beaufort County community of Yemassee, where the 6,701 primates housed at the sprawling Alpha Genesis facility nearly triple the number of town residents.

In a formal letter to the NIH, the agency that funds laboratory research, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which inspects and regulates breeding facilities, Mace expressed “very urgent concerns regarding federal oversight of Alpha Genesis.” Mace said the prolonged attempts to recapture all of the primates are “placing the animals and my constituents at risk.”

In this Aug. 15, 2024 file photo, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., speaks about a human trafficking victim protection bill before a ceremonial bill signing in the lobby of the State House in Columbia, S.C.
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“A lot of constituents were concerned about whether or not the primates that escaped were sick or ill, or have been tested on,” Mace told ABC News. “There were a lot of folks concerned about the facility being a breeding facility and the testing that goes on there as well.”

The escape highlights an ‘issue of national security’

The incident some locals have referred to as “the great escape” has illuminated the international crisis hitting the animal research industry that Alpha Genesis’ Westergaard said has become “an issue of national security.”

In 2020, the Chinese government, the world’s primary breeder of research monkeys, banned the exports of nonhuman primates (NPH) to labs in the United States and elsewhere, triggering an international shortage of the animals just as research scientists were scrambling to come up with vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a May 2023 report by National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine.

Primates, according to the NIH-supported report, are valuable in answering certain research questions because of their genetic, anatomic, physiologic and behavioral similarities to humans. However, the China ban on exporting research animals exacerbated the shortage and stalled NIH-funded research, according to the report.