A truck hauling aggressive Rhesus monkeys that were initially said to be infected with Hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID crashed on Interstate 59 near mile marker 117 in Jasper County, Mississippi, on Tuesday, sparking concerns over public health risks and animal welfare.
Many of the monkeys were quickly killed by law enforcement, but three remained on the loose as of Wednesday morning.
It’s starting to look like a movie — in the U.S., a lab monkey infected with dangerous viruses escaped after a crash
In Pennsylvania, a truck carrying test macaques with hepatitis C, herpes, and Covid-19 overturned.
Five monkeys were found soon after, but one is still on… pic.twitter.com/HeJyfVM6fW
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) October 29, 2025
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Department later clarified, after killing many of the animals, that Tulane University in Louisiana, which was responsible for the primates, said that they are not infectious.
“The driver of the truck told local law enforcement that the monkeys were dangerous and posed a threat to humans,” the department wrote in a post on Facebook. “We took the appropriate actions after being given that information from the person transporting the monkeys. He also stated that you had wear PPE equipment to handle the monkeys.”
The post included a statement from Tulane that “non-human primates at the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center are provided to other research organizations to advance scientific discovery. The primates in question belong to another entity and are not infectious.”
The statement added that they are “actively collaborating with local authorities and will send a team of animal care experts to assist as needed.”
In response to the news, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for an end to abusive animal testing.
Monkeys infected with Covid and other infectious diseases like Hep C and Herpes.
How incredibly sad and wrong.
I’ve never met a taxpayer that wants their hard earned dollars paying for animal abuse nor who supports it.
This needs to end! https://t.co/s6IoBCXRTc
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) October 29, 2025
The Tulane Center rebranded earlier this month, from its original name, the “Tulane National Primate Research Center,” likely in an effort to soften its image and appear less sinister amid growing public backlash against animal testing.
On social media, soon after the accident, the animal testing watchdog White Coat Waste highlighted the Tulane University primate facility’s federal funding. The organization filed a federal complaint in 2021 over the Tulane National Primate Research Center’s failure to properly disclose Dr. Fauci‘s funding for its COVID experiments on monkeys, in violation of federal law.
Reports indicate the center has a long history of federal funding for controversial animal experiments, including those tied to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s former division at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The center received $21 million for maintaining a colony of monkeys used in AIDS experiments, funded by Fauci’s division and renewed in August.
Funded with millions of our tax dollars by Dr Fauci & @NIH
CC @SecKennedy https://t.co/V68uiUvA8K pic.twitter.com/rMo1cPDJN6
— Justin Goodman (@JustinRGoodman) October 29, 2025
Further funding includes $10 million from Fauci’s NIAID for COVID vaccine testing on nonhuman primates, as part of efforts to study viral infection and transmission.
According to the most recent 2023 report, the facility confined 5,883 monkeys, raising serious ethical questions about the scale of these operations.
This isn’t the first safety mishap involving Tulane. A 2014 incident in which two rhesus macaques contracted melioidosis from Burkholderia pseudomallei due to sloppy biosafety practices.
In 2015, Science reported on the issue: “In January, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Department of Agriculture investigators traced the strain infecting the primates to a vaccine research lab working with mice. Last month, as the investigation continued, CDC suspended the primate center’s 10 or so research projects involving B. pseudomallei and other select agents (a list of dangerous bacteria, viruses, and toxins that are tightly regulated). Meanwhile, a report in USA Today suggested the bacterium might have contaminated the center’s soil or water.”
In a press release at the time, the CDC said, “CDC and APHIS inspectors identified lapses in the appropriate use of personal protective equipment; specifically, the correct use of outer wear to prevent contamination of clothing beneath them, which could have led to the bacteria clinging to inner garments and getting carried out of the select agent lab where research was being conducted with the bacteria on mice.”
The CDC added that its inspectors “determined that Tulane primate center staff frequently entered the select agent lab without appropriate protective clothing, which would increase the risk of bringing the bacteria out of the lab or becoming infected themselves.”
No environmental release was confirmed, but the event led to the suspension of several research projects until compliance was restored. One staff member tested positive for low-level antibodies, indicating potential exposure.
Justin Goodman, senior vice president at White Coat Waste, told Gateway Pundit:
“The Tulane primate center has a sordid history of wasteful Fauci-funded monkey business, secretive spending, and dangerous lab accidents, and White Coat Waste has been working with Congress to defund it. The NIH shouldn’t be forcing taxpayers to subsidize this primate prison. We’re urging Secretary Kennedy to follow the lead of the first Trump administration and shut down government primate labs and retire the survivors to sanctuary.”
Goodman is referencing a case in 2018 where the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which Kennedy now oversees, canceled nicotine addiction experiments on squirrel monkeys and relocated the primates to a sanctuary in Florida following a White Coat Waste lawsuit and investigation. The FDA later closed its largest primate laboratory, which was based in Arkansas.
WCW also led a successful effort to phase out primate testing at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which Trump’s VA Secretary Doug Collins said is ahead of schedule, as Gateway Pundit reported.
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