Medical institutions throughout the US are under siege, as a rising cohort of venture capitalists and risky biotech startups move in to exploit the Trump administration’s hands-off approach to health regulation.
Chief among them is Palantir cofounder and billionaire venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale. The billionaire’s new startup, Safer Human Medicine, plans to sell picks and shovels to the new generation of experimental medical companies — in other words, macaque monkeys.
As Forbes reports, Lonsdale’s venture capital firm 8VC has invested $20 million in Safer Human Medicine, a company which is working to breed some 30,000 macaques destined for medical experiments at the hands of America’s freshman bio-tech startups.
In a a podcast appearance in May, Lonsdale justified the move as “pro-human.”
“Would you rather save your sibling or the monkey?” the billionaire asked.
“America needs a reliable domestic supply of research primates to help rapidly advance cures for our kids,” Lonsdale told Forbes in a statement. “Leadership means having the courage to support research that can save lives even when it sounds controversial.”
The founder of Safer Human Medicine, Jim Harkness, has a checkered past, to say the last. During his previous role as COO of research animal supplier Envigo, a dog-breeding lab in Virginia was ordered to surrender over 4,000 beagles after federal officials found widespread violations of the Animal Welfare and Clean Water acts. Envigo’s parent company, Inotiv Inc., later pleaded guilty, agreeing to pay $35 million in fines.
In a letter addressed to residents of Decatur County, Georgia — the planned site of a contested Safer Human facility — Harkness explained that in his eyes, the ends justify the means when it comes to animal research. Far from being unethical, Harkness wrote that what’s actually “immoral” is to “allow humans and animals to suffer from disease and illness.”
Concluding, Harkness wrote that “the use of animals in human and veterinary research is viewed by those involved as a scientifically justifiable means to an end that must be preserved to ensure that humans and animals don’t have to needlessly endure disease and suffering.”
More on animal welfare: Palmer Luckey Says He’s Breeding Genetically Enhanced Dogs for the Military