"Thirteen miles southwest of downtown Portland, just south of a string of Hillsboro strip malls, sits a second-growth stand of Douglas fir and cedars that have grown over 100 feet high. The air is filled with the tang of evergreens.

Through the trees, one can see cyclone fences topped with barbed wire. Behind that perimeter is the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, a 200-acre campus with a worldwide reputation.

The primate center is home to 25 scientists and to 2,600 rhesus monkeys, mammals so cognitively advanced that, if minimally trained, they can trounce an average 9-year-old at computer games.

The monkeys are caught in the midst of a conflict that cuts to the heart of biomedical research.

On one side is the 39-year-old primate center, which experiments on the monkeys because they are biological proxies for humans.

To date, most of the criticism has sprung from the usual suspects: animal-rights groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and In Defense of Animals and more moderate groups like the Humane Society of the United States. Protesters have gathered outside the primate center, as they did two weekends ago. They've written letters to the editor and to members of Congress in an attempt to end animal experimentation. For two years, one of the activists, Matt Rossell, worked undercover at the primate center only to emerge last summer with videotapes of monkeys living in what looked to be troubling conditions (see WW, "Shock the Monkey," Jan. 3, 2001, and "The Spy Who Loved Monkeys," Feb. 7, 2001). Rossell filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which in January, after a two-month investigation, cleared the primate center of any wrongdoing.

Earlier this month, however, criticism emerged from an entirely different source.

Two weeks ago, WW received a report about the primate center that had never been made public. The report is extraordinary for two reasons. First, it offers a very harsh assessment of the primate center, a division of Oregon Health Sciences University. Second, the report was prepared at the primate center's request.

Carol Shively, a professor of pathology and psychology at Wake Forest University's medical school in Winston-Salem, N.C., was hired by the primate center last September, shortly after Rossell went public with a charge that the center was neglecting the psychological well-being of its monkeys. Shively's task, apparently, was to assess whether that was true.

In December, WW learned of the report and requested a copy under Oregon open-records law. The primate center denied the request. WW filed another request; this time, an OHSU attorney denied it, arguing that Shively's report was only a draft of a final report. For another two months, WW conducted lengthy email and telephone correspondence with OHSU's legal counsel, Janet Billups.

On March 7, finally, OHSU relented, and the primate center agreed to release the report.

Titled "Psychological Well-Being of Laboratory Primates at Oregon Regional Primate Research Center," the report says that the primate center is doing some things right, including the employment of a "dedicated" specialist in primate psychological well-being.

But it also takes the center to task for its practices, at least one of which Shively says "should be terminated immediately." The report says that the primate center has unnecessarily produced behaviorally aberrant monkeys and is out-of-touch with advances in primate handling and care.

In the only known image of a monkey undergoing electro-ejaculation, an unidentified primate center technician prepares a monkey for a procedure OHSU concedes causes "momentary pain and distress."

Since the Shively report's release, the primate center, which is 90 percent funded with federal tax dollars, has effectively blocked access to its facilities and officials. Susan Smith, the center's director, cancelled a March 7 interview, then refused to meet with WW at a later date. Primate center and OHSU officials cancelled a previously arranged appointment for a photographer to take pictures of monkeys in cages. In addition, OHSU faxed a letter to this reporter on March 16, reading in part, "Your constant calls, pages and emails to multiple staff members 10 to 12 times daily is disrespectful of their other requests and obligations. It appears that you expect them to drop everything, adjust meetings, deadlines and job responsibilities, to respond to you immediately."

Frederick Buckman, Thomas Imeson and Michael Thorne, all OHSU board members, either declined to comment for this story or did not return WW's calls. OHSU's president, Peter Kohler, did not return repeated requests for comment, nor did Lesley Hallick, the university's provost and vice president for research.

The National Institutes of Health, which funds the center, also refused to comment.

"I have never heard of a report by someone within the industry that is so critical," says Martin Stevens, vice-president of animal issues for the Humane Society of the United States. "This is pretty close to a smoking gun, because you have an unbiased scientific colleague chosen by the institution giving this report."

In 1962, the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center opened along what is now the Westside MAX line. It was the first of eight regional primate research centers across the United States, an attempt by the federal government to narrow America's basic science gap after the Soviet Union beat the United States into outer space. Merged with Oregon Health Sciences University in 1998, it is now a state institution receiving almost $30 million a year in federal and private funding to advance the cause of human health.

Since the animal-rights movement first gained momentum in the mid-1970s, primate centers have been the focus of unyielding criticism. To an animal rightist, it is unconscionable to experiment on creatures so closely related to humans. At times, protests have taken place in front of researchers' homes, as they did in Atlanta last fall, giving the movement the flavor of an anti-war teach-in.

In that environment, primate researchers have hunkered down. The Shively report is one of the few known instances of one primate researcher engaging in unsparing, documented criticism of other colleagues' practices and procedures.

Among other things, the report faults the primate center for a procedure called electro-ejaculation. The procedure is used to gather sperm from approximately one dozen monkeys, chosen for their genetic line; the sperm is used for studies in reproductive biology, a primate center specialty.

The Oregon primate center collects sperm, sometimes as often as once a week per monkey, by strapping a male rhesus into a chair, wrapping metal bands around his penis, attaching electrodes to the bands and supplying enough electrical current to make the monkey ejaculate (see "Shock the Monkey," Jan. 3, 2001). During the procedure, the animal is not anesthetized. After a sample is collected, the monkey is returned to his cage.

"The awake electro-ejaculation procedure observed by me while visiting the primate center did not appear to be humane and should be terminated immediately," says Shively in her report. Primate center officials did not take her advice.

"It traumatizes the animal," she says. "That represents an insult to the animal that resulted in behavioral problems like an animal chewing on itself. I've been around primate centers for almost 20 years and seen a lot, but I was shaken and upset" after observing the procedure.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: Earlier this year, OHSU moved the primate center's signage from a prominent spot on Northwest 185th Avenue to a spot 1/4 of a mile down its access road.

In December, WW filed the first in a series of public-records requests with the primate center, seeking to review medical and behavior records for 13 monkeys who were regularly subjected to this procedure (different monkeys were used at different times). The records show that over the last several years, but mostly since 1997, the 13 monkeys suffered 49 instances of what the primate center calls "self-injurious behavior": biting themselves, banging their heads against cages, one biting his genitals, another drinking his own urine.

There is no conclusive proof that this behavior is a direct consequence of electro-ejaculation, only that it is, indeed, aberrant behavior for rhesus monkeys.

There are seven other regional primate research centers in the United States and scores of American universities that use primates as research subjects. Most are notoriously closemouthed about their procedures, making it difficult to gauge what's standard practice in the research world.

Shively says, however, that Oregon's method of electro-ejaculation is hardly the standard.

Chris Abee, a professor of comparative medicine at the University of South Alabama and past president of the Primate Veterinary Association, says his institution does not use electro-ejaculation. Instead, he employs a vibrating device on a monkey's penis to collect sperm. He reports no behavior problems among his monkeys, who are anesthetized during the procedure. "I always look for the least invasive method, which has the least potential for discomfort for the animal," he says.

The Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center in Madison, Wisc., also uses a different method than the Oregon primate center. It involves placing vibrating probes on the foreskin of a monkey's penis, according to Darrel Florence, associate director of animal services at the Wisconsin center.

Shively criticized the Oregon primate center for not staying current with sperm collection practices at other institutions.

"It has been amply demonstrated at other primate facilities that macaques [rhesus monkeys] are relatively easily trained to cooperate with fairly complex clinical sampling procedures," says Shively in her report. "This training eliminates the necessity of restraining monkeys, which is profoundly disturbing to the animals, and forcing them to engage in behaviors that they are quite capable of volunteering."

Shively says that Oregon primate center officials' attitudes toward electro-ejaculation were quite different. Soon after making her observations in September, Shively met with Michael Conn, associate director of the primate center.

"He said he'd never seen the procedure but that he'd heard that the monkeys found it pleasurable," Shively told WW. "I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying he ought to try it himself."

When the USDA investigated the primate center in October, it uncovered two instances where monkeys had suffered thermal burns to their penises. But the federal agency didn't order the primate center to change its procedure; it just encouraged it to consider doing it another way.

At press time, primate center officials had not responded to WW's questions regarding the status of electro-ejaculations. But, as recently as last month, the center was continuing this procedure, conceding in a letter to the USDA that it "may possibly result in momentary pain or distress."

In the past, the primate center argued that electro-ejaculation was the only feasible method to obtain quality sperm samples.

As critical as Shively is of the primate center's electro-ejaculation procedure, her report takes a larger swipe at the primate center's housing practices.

For decades, many of the federally funded primate centers housed primates in single cages. They did so because scientists could better control environmental variables of their research protocols; also, there was a smaller chance that one monkey would infect another with a virus, always a concern in dormitory-like settings.

But rhesus monkeys, like all human and non-human primates, are social creatures.

Placed in cages by themselves, many of these monkeys became psychologically taxed simply by the lack of social contact, for which they seem to have as great a need as for their daily allotment of monkey chow. Monkeys bit themselves and suffered from depression.

By the mid-1980s primate researchers began grouping monkeys together in cages, a practice called social housing, knowing it alleviated behavior problems. In 1991, the USDA issued updated regulations (first issued in 1985) ordering research facilities to "promote the psychological well-being of primates." The agency's language was broad, but the implication was that facilities should house primates together unless there were overwhelming scientific reasons to do otherwise.

CAROL SHIVELY IS hardly an animal rightist: She uses socially housed primates in behavior studies at Wake Forest University. Yet after two days of making clinical observations at the Oregon primate center, she wrote a deeply critical report, becoming one of the few known examples of a primate researcher publicly criticizing a primate facility.

Several primate centers have changed accordingly. The Wisconsin primate center has socially housed as much as 80 percent of its monkeys since 1985. The California Regional Primate Research Center in Davis, Calif., now socially houses as much as 80 percent of its research monkeys. Precise numbers for other centers are difficult to obtain; many of the primate centers did not return requests for comment. But Shively says in her report, "The consensus of the scientific community is that these monkeys are dependent upon their social relationships for their physical and psychological well-being."

"Animals should be socially housed," she told WW. "It hurts them when they are not. They begin to behave strangely and exhibit pathologies like pacing and self-aggression and hair-plucking to the point of body nudity. That's what happens to animals that have evolved to be social when they are singly housed. It's entirely preventable."

The Oregon primate center has lagged behind modern practices. It houses the majority of its 1,000 monkeys indoors in single cages. (The other 1,600 monkeys are not used for invasive research and are housed in group settings.)

Shively says she saw no scientific reason for that. "Rather, investigators [scientists] were not giving priority to the social needs of monkeys," she says in her report.

Curiously, as far back as 1991, Oregon primate center scientists acknowledged the value of social housing. An internal newsletter from that year states that social housing was a fix for problem monkeys and that the center should head in that direction.

More recently, WW learned that a number of primate center scientists themselves have questioned the condition of a group of 24 monkeys, who were subjects of a nutrition study and caged alone. In December, WW filed the first in a series of public-records requests for the medical and behavior records of these primates.

The records show 236 instances of self-injurious behavior over a period stretching back several years, but mostly concentrated between 1998 and 2000. Five of the monkeys had bitten themselves so severely that they had fingers amputated; two of the monkeys had double amputations. One of the monkeys bit itself so severely that it was euthanized. Another three receive constant treatment with anti-depressants and Naltrexone, a drug commonly prescribed for heroin addicts.

"Self-destructive behavior is not a normal occurrence," says Chris Abee of the University of South Alabama.

The primate center is finally in the early stages of addressing social housing, WW has learned. It will soon begin construction of small outdoor shelters at a cost of $4 million; it is unclear how many, if any, singly caged monkeys will be shifted from their indoor housing into the new facilities. Also, the center will spend $1.6 million to install larger cages in its buildings and create social housing for research monkeys.

But after waiting so long, the primate center may have difficulty getting older monkeys, who were singly housed for years, to adjust to social housing.

During the current legislative session, state Sen. Ryan Deckert (D-Beaverton) introduced Senate Bill 230, an attempt to toughen Oregon's animal-abuse law. The bill is a response to an April 2000 incident at the Oregon Zoo, when Rose-Tu, an elephant, was repeatedly beaten by a handler. The handler was given what many animal activists and USDA officials considered a light sentence--120 hours of community service and two years of bench probation--because prosecutors felt they could not make a strong enough case under current law.

Deckert introduced the bill in January. Soon after, an OHSU lobbyist (the university employs three lobbyists in Salem) asked Deckert to exempt the primate center from the law. Believing OHSU had a case, he drafted an amendment to do just that.

After reviewing the Shively report last week, the senator has different feelings.

"She's zeroed in on something that's a problem," Deckert says. "This reignites my interest in talking to them [OHSU] and drafting an amendment on social housing."

For its part, the USDA is cautious about assessing the primate center's practices just two months after issuing it a clean bill of health.

Ron DeHaven, deputy director of animal care for the USDA, had not heard about Shively's report and wouldn't comment on her findings. But made aware of the primate center's decision to continue using essentially the same electro-ejaculation procedure as it has in the past, DeHaven seemed surprised.

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer says Congress is grappling with alternatives to animal experimentation, as well as with how research animals are tended to. The Shively report, says the Portland Democrat, will become part of that debate.

GETTING CLOSER TO OUR NEXT OF KIN

Seven years ago, The Monkey Wars spelled out the battle lines between primate researchers and animal rightists. "The passion of animal advocates for monkeys is recent, bred largely by our growing awareness of animal intelligence and the close relationship of primates to humans," Deborah Blum wrote in the book.

It appears that the passion may intensify--and the reason has more to do with evolutionary insights than revolutionary outbursts.

Last month, two groups of scientists delivered the final sequence of the human genome. The shock for most everyone in the scientific world was that humans had but 30,000 genes, 70,000 fewer than long predicted.

But what's gone largely unanalyzed is that one of the groups, led by J. Craig Venter, estimates that the number of mice genes that are different from humans stands at a mere 300. Previously, mice were presumed to share 90 percent of human DNA. The implication is that mice share 99 percent of our DNA.

Obviously, non-human primates--gorillas, apes, chimpanzees and monkeys--are even closer to us. At the moment, no one is willing to publicly estimate just how close non-human primate DNA and human primate DNA are. But experts contacted by WW tentatively agreed that monkeys and their cousins may differ from human DNA by less than 1 percent.

"That's the kind of thing that's going to be a jolt," says Trish Backlar, associate director of OHSU's ethics center.

When biologists become more confident in estimating how closely related humans and non-human primates are, it will have profound effects.

Both sides in the monkey wars could well claim that this brave new biology strengthens their hands. Primate researchers could argue the evidence is further proof that primates are indispensable as model organisms. Animal rightists could counter that primates are far too close to Homo sapiens to justify further vivisection.

All of which would bring the argument back to where it's been for almost four centuries: whether we should kill our biological cousins in an effort to save ourselves.

--PD