Close Oregon National Primate Research Center, Urge Experts and Citizens Testifying at Oregon State Capitol

SALEM, Ore.—Public testimony from scientific experts, citizens, and Rep. David Gomberg at a hearing in the Oregon State Legislature on May 13, 2025, overwhelmingly called for adding an amendment to Senate Bill 181 to shut down Oregon Health & Science University’s Oregon National Primate Research Center and end the use of primates in breeding and research in Oregon. In addition to the in-person and written testimony from more than 1,600 people, nearly 20,000 people have signed a petition or sent emails to Gov. Tina Kotek and state legislators, calling for closure of the primate center.

The hearing before the House Committee On Emergency Management, General Government, and Veterans was filled with so many supporters of adding the amendment that the hearing ended before everyone had a chance to testify.

In advance of the hearing, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and other organizations called on the House leadership to include the amendment on the agenda for legislators to hear and pass the amendment. In March, Gov. Kotek expressed her support for closing its primate research center.

“We look forward to the amendment being posted so that the legislators can debate and vote in this session,” says Ryan Merkley, director of research advocacy for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, who testified today. Despite the amendment not being added today, testimony from more than a dozen speakers remained largely focused on adding the amendment to close down the Oregon National Primate Research Center.

“Ongoing primate research as we’ve done it in the past is simply unsustainable financially going forward,” said Oregon State Rep. David Gomberg, who gave opening testimony at the House Committee On Emergency Management, General Government, and Veterans hearing. “We need to stop testing on monkeys, and we need to stop breeding more monkeys because we already have more than 5,000 of them on hand. Instead, we should shift to human-relevant, more modern technology.”

Founded in 1962, the primate research center, one of seven left in the United States, is located in Beaverton and houses more than 5,000 monkeys. Between 2014 and 2022, it violated the federal Animal Welfare Act more than 30 times. Records show pregnant monkeys have been given nicotine to injure their unborn babies, and in 2020, an employee scalded two monkeys to death in a washing system because he reportedly didn’t see them in the cage. In 2023, a 2-day-old monkey was crushed by a sliding glass door and had to be euthanized. And in 2025, USDA reported a monkey dying because workers failed to notify a veterinarian that she was gravely ill.

“OHSU’s primate center is a relic of the 1960s,” said Ryan Merkley in his testimony. “The federal government, which has kept the center afloat for decades, has been slashing funding for animal experiments and announcing huge investments in human-relevant modern nonanimal research. Patients deserve better treatments and safer drugs, and the primate experiments happening at OHSU are failing to provide either.”

In April, both the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, which funds experiments at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, announced that they would begin moving toward replacing animal use with human-based methods, such as organ chips and computational methods.

In a recent Physicians Committee/Morning Consult poll, 85% of Americans agreed that “animal experimentation should be phased out in favor of more modern research methods.”