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'RECORD OF A MEETING CONVENED BY THE MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUPPLY OF RHESUS MONKEYS FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, HELD AT 26 OLD QUEEN STREET, ON 16TH FEBRUARY 1956

A previous meeting had been held in July 1955 to consider the problem of the humane shipment of monkeys by air from India to the United Kingdom. Those who attended the meeting were representatives of the Medical Research Council and of various organisations and laboratories in the United Kingdom who are users of monkeys for medical research purposes. As a result of that meeting recommendations were drawn up for humane shipment of monkeys by air from overseas, and a copy of these I have placed opposite above (114). We received a copy of this at the time. There is one small amendment in the present version. The reference to the attendance at the July meeting of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has been deleted. The  original version of this paper is at (69) on the file. It was revealed at the meeting that although the R.S.P.C.A. had agreed with the recommendations on the shipment of monkeys, they did not wish to appear to be associated in any way with the shipment of monkeys from overseas for medical purposes. If they were seen to be associated, it would cost them some sympathy among some of their supporters, and they might lose some subscriptions. The R.S.P.C.A. has its crank fringe who would, if they could, entirely suppress the traffic in monkeys to the United Kingdom for medical research purposes. One of the cranks is Mr. Peter Freeman M.P.

The purpose of the meeting on 16th February was for Dr. Lane-Petter to report on his visit to India for the purpose of working out with the Indian authorities satisfactory arrangements for the shipping of monkeys to the United Kingdom. Dr. Lane-Petter's report is at (114) on the file, and since the report is so clear and comprehensive, he did not have very much to add to it. He outlined the unsatisfactory state of the monkey trade in the last few years in which new dealers had established themselves and had been responsible for a number of abuses. Dr. Lane-Petter said that trapping expeditions in Africa and East Bengal had been unsuccessful. It was only in India that there were experienced monkey trappers, and it was to India that we had to look for our supplies of monkeys. It had been his object to make the traffic between India and the U.K. in monkeys a model for the trade. This traffic is relatively small compared with the very much larger take-off by America.

Dr. Lane-Petter said that he thought he had been able to satisfy the Indian authorities on the adequacy of the nineteen inch cage for the transport of monkeys to the United Kingdom (the recommended dimensions for a monkey cage may be seen in the sketch attached to the recommendations produced by the July conference). The revised Indian regulations for the shipment of monkeys had not yet, however, been promulgated. The delay in an issue of an amended notice by the Ministry of Commerce might be due to a request having been made by the Government to the recently established Committee on the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals fir a report on this subject. Mr. Patterson who was now the main supplier of monkeys to the United Kingdom had reported that the trade was going forward with no obstacles, and Dr. Lane-Petter was confident that an amended notice would be issued in due course in the sense we desired.

Dr. Green, the Chairman, said that the R.S.P.C.A. who had provisionally agreed with the terms of the recommendations for the humane shipment of monkeys, but who had subsequently refused to have their name appear on the document, had approached the Ministry of Agriculture with a view to the issue of regulations by H.M.G. for the carriage of monkeys. An inter-departmental meeting had been held on the 27th January (a record of this meeting is at (113) on the file). The R.S.P.C.A.'s recommendations went further than those of the July conference, and were in the Chairman's opinion, obstructive to the shipment of monkeys. The Departmental view was, he said, that there was no need for legislation, and the Ministries' representatives at the meeting on 27th January were determined that their own Minister should not be saddled with the responsibility for introducing legislation. Nevertheless the R.S.P.C.A. would fight strongly to achieve their points. A formal meeting would be held in March between the R.S.P.C.A. and H.M.G. at which the R.S.P.C.A. would be represented by their Chairman Lord [Merthyr] and Mr. Peter Freeman M.P. Dr. Petter thought that the R.S.P.C.A. would hesitate to obstruct the manufacture of poliomyelitis vaccine. It was generally agreed that it was important to adhere to the recommendations of the July conference for the shipment of monkeys, since the R.S.P.C.A. would concentrate on humane conditions of transport.

Dr. Petter said that he had had a discussion with Amrit Kaur the Indian Health Minister who was coming to the United Kingdom this year, and who expressed a desire to see how we in the United Kingdom looked after animals used for medical purposes. Dr. Petter had told her that he would be delighted to arrange for her to see all that she wanted to see. She relied, Dr. Petter said, on Dr. Panjit, the Secretary of the Indian Council of Medical Research, for advice on technical matters, and it was fortunate for us that Dr. Panjit was quite sound from our point of view.

The world's trade in monkeys had now become very large. Dr. Petter said that the United States authorities had estimated the world need at 250,000 per annum. Mr. Pattison had entered the trade in 1950 with very little money and no orders. An initial order of 100 monkeys from the Medical Research Council had put him in business, and he had assured Dr. Petter that he would always try to assure the Medical Research Council's orders for monkeys received priority.

Dr. Petter said that Major Hughes who had set up in business in East Bengal as a shipper of monkeys was now out of business. Out of two recent consignments from East Bengal the mortality had been high. There was also a very high instance [sic] of T.B. amongst the monkeys shipped from East Bengal, which indicated that they had been collected from urban areas and not from the jungle. The cost of freight from Dacca is higher than from Delhi, and altogether shipments from monkeys from East Bengal have proved unsatisfactory.

There was some discussion of the usefulness to users of monkeys in the United Kingdom of Mr. Lonsdale who runs a farm at Brighton for monkeys and other exotic animals, and who acts as a middle man for consumers in this country. Dr. Petter recommended the larger consumers to place their orders for monkeys direct with Mr. Pattison and to collect them from London Airport and take them direct to their laboratories. This would reduce the number of stages in the journey of the monkeys from India to the United Kingdom, and should ensure a lower mortality and the arrival of the monkeys in better condition. The larger users of monkeys could no doubt make their own arrangements for the collection of monkeys from London Airport, but the small users would not find it economic to do so. The small users of monkeys in this country are very small compared with the big users, and it was generally thought that the big users could meet the requirement of small users from their own stocks. If, for instance, a University required two or three monkeys, the Medical Research Council or Wellcomes [sic] would probably be able to supply these without any inconvenience. If a larger number were required, Dr. Petter recommended that the users should place an order direct with Mr. Patterson.

The recommendations in Paragraph 8 of Dr. Petter's report for the procurement of monkeys for medical research in the United Kingdom were discussed, and generally approved. The only recommendation which concerns the C.R.O. directly is that in the second paragraph of Recommendation (1). The Indian authorities require estimates of future consumption, and future consumers in the United Kingdom will send estimates of their requirements to Mr. Whittaker of the Medical Research Council who will consolidate them, look into the crystal, and pass the results to the Commonwealth Relations Office who will send the estimate to the Trade Commission in Delhi for transmission to the Indian authorities. Mr. Whittaker said that these estimates were only of paper value, but the Indian authorities wished to have them.

The bulk of the discussion at the meeting was taken up with technical questions concerning the care and handling of monkeys during transit and after their arrival in this country. This part of the discussion was of no great concern to the Commonwealth Relations Office.

After the meeting I was able to have a private discussion with Dr. Petter, particularly in relation to paragraph (v) of his recommendations at page 8 in his report. In this paragraph he refers to the possibility of importing kidney cell suspensions rather than live monkeys for growing poliomyelitis virus. In his report he states that he formed the view that the difficulty of overcoming the reluctance on the part of Indian opinion to sanction the killing of monkeys in India had been exaggerated. When I questioned him on this point, Dr. Petter reaffirmed that those medical and businessmen with whom he had talked in Delhi and elsewhere were not at all disposed to oppose the killing of monkeys on religious or sentimental grounds. I replied that the educated persons who held these views were not representative of the feeling of the masses. I asked Dr. Petter whether Indian laboratories were in fact killing monkeys for medical research and he replied that they were. He said that the important thing was how it was done and by whom. He was assured that if an Indian laboratory or health institute wished to kill monkeys for medical purposes, it would be able to do so, and that it would have the support of the Indian authorities. On the other hand, if Mr. Pattison were known to be killing monkeys, that would be an entirely different matter. It would be quite possible for Indian laboratories to prepare live kidney cells and to send them from India to the United Kingdom. We agreed that if this could be developed it would be more convenient in many ways, since it would obviate the necessity of shipping live monkeys from India to the United Kingdom, and would transfer the onus of killing the monkeys from the United Kingdom to India. This aspect was not examined in open discussion, since the meeting was essentially concerned with the humane transport of live monkeys from India to the United Kingdom.'