Austin downtown protesters demand that Elon Musk's "Neuralink" company stop using monkeys in its tests.

Thursday, August 4, 2022 | Chimniii Desk

ATLANTA (KXAN) – The Physicians Committee on Responsible Medicine protesters gathered outside Austin City Hall on Wednesday to draw attention to Neuralink's animal testing facilities, where several monkeys have perished as a result of the testing.

Along with the demonstration, the organisation is funding advertisements to run inside all 400 of Capital Metro's buses as well as a full wrap around two of them.

"We've got two enormous bus ads. These ads span 60 feet. And they demand that Elon Musk make the footage public. What are you concealing? On Wednesday, Ryan Merkley from the Physicians Committee spoke to KXAN.

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The videos in those advertisements were taken from a Neuralink testing facility in California a few years ago.

"Neuralink supported research on monkeys at the University of California-Davis, which is why we're suing them right now. Photos and videotapes are not being released by the institution, according to Merkley.

Elon Musk owns the startup Neuralink, which aims to build brain-machine interfaces to link people and computers. In essence, it involves implanting a chip in your brain to manage your smart appliances.

According to the Physicians Committee, there would be greater indignation if the public knew what was actually taking place at these clinics.

"Monkeys have to be restrained on chairs, their heads are opened, and medical gadgets are connected to them; many of them pass away from infectious diseases. We think that if people truly understand what animal experimentation is like, they won't support it, said biopharmaceutical scientist and Physicians Committee volunteer Faraz Harsini on Wednesday.

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According to Harsini, it is possible to carry out research without using animals.

"We have technology that we can demonstrate is safer and more relevant to humans. We can so utilise human tissues. We may make use of cadavers, modern imaging equipment, microdosing, human volunteers, and more, according to Harsini.

Although Neuralink claims on its website that it plans to stop using animal testing in the future, the technology just isn't there yet.

"We also look forward to the day when using animals in medical research is no longer necessary. However, in order to treat illnesses, stop the spread of infections, and develop technology that can alter how people interact with the outside world, our society currently depends on medical advancements. However, the website notes that if animals must be employed in study in the interim, their lives and experiences should be as vital and naturalistic as possible.

It also makes clear that the deceased monkeys were part of the organization's first testing and suffered from a variety of underlying diseases.

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"Terminal operations entail the compassionate killing of an anaesthetized animal after the procedure is finished. The veterinary staff has determined that the animals in this category are healthy enough for one anaesthesia event, although they may not have a suitable quality of life because of a pre-existing ailment. In the event that the test operation yields an unexpected result, performing first surgeries on cadavers and terminal treatments ensures that an animal won't possibly suffer post-operatively, according to the website.

Because they had a variety of pre-existing diseases unrelated to our research, these animals were assigned to our project on the day of the surgery for our terminal operation. We were able to build our innovative surgical and robot methods thanks to the preliminary work from these procedures, creating safer guidelines for further survival surgeries. The function of various generations of implanted devices was then tested through survival studies as we improved them for human usage, according to the website.

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According to Neuralink, eight animals in total were put to death during this initial experiment.

According to the university's website, "All animal work done at UC Davis was approved by their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), as required by Federal law, and all medical and post-surgical support, including endpoint decisions, were oversaw by their dedicated and skilled veterinary staff."

As work on a facility in Del Valle continues, the Physicians Committee also sent a letter to Mayor Steve Adler requesting him to look into the corporation and revoke any incentives the city may have provided.

Merkley said, "We only found out that the treasurer of that shell business is a Neuralink employee after public records requests and a lot of investigating. [Neuralink] purchased land in Dell Valle last year through a shell company.

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The fact that this facility is under development is evident from the public records. Although it is being run by Neuralink employees, it is unclear whether or not that will actually be the company's facility. But it's obvious that they are constructing a facility that will keep animals, the speaker said.

The city's Economic Development Department told KXAN in a statement that it has no incentive agreement with Neuralink for economic development.

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