WASHINGTON – The National Institutes of Health sent around $17 million to a consortium of Colombian companies accused of developing a “questionable” malaria vaccine tested on owl monkeys held in squalor, The Post has exclusively learned.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched an investigation into the companies after a whistleblower passed along images of the disheveled primates used in NIH-funded experiments based on “shoddy science and manipulation of data,” according to the animal rights group.
“It appears to be a huge scam, if I’m honest,” PETA attorney Magnolia Martinez told The Post. “American taxpayers are being scammed into paying for a malaria vaccine that doesn’t exist – and it will never be produced by using monkeys.”
Socrates Herrera, who owns the companies with wife Myriam Arevalo-Hererra, denied the allegations in an email to the Post on Thursday, charging that PETA’s claims are “based on false accusations and documents put out of context.”
“Monkey studies have contributed to … successfully moving from the selection of malaria parasite antigens [in the discovery phase], to animal studies [in the preclinical phase], to human vaccine trials [in the clinical phase] with the support and supervision of institutions as prestigious as the World Health Organization,” Herrera wrote.
But Martinez said her interviews with 11 former and current employees raised questions about the studies’ integrity.
“They have published clinical trials where they...
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