Lisberger Responds to Allegations of "Cruelty"

A commentor to the previous posts characterized Lisberger's protocols as being tantamont to animal cruelty. I contacted him directly, and asked whether what was stated was true. He responded as follows:

What is in the description you've come across
is a grossly exaggerated and distorted picture
of procedures that we use for humane and ethical
experiments on monkeys.

Every one of those points has been distorted to
make it sound horrible.  In fact, our treatment
of the monkeys is humane and thoughtful.  My
institutional veterinarians and the USDA are
well aware of everything we do, and they approve.

If you would like me to correct any one of these
gruesome allegations, I'd be happy to -- just let
me know which one!

I told him to pick whatever he wanted to respond to, and he submitted:

OK: Here's the answer to the "Lisberger starts by
slicing their eyes open with scalpels so that wire
coils can be placed inside"

We do implant a very lightweight coil of wire on
the monkeys' eyes.  This is done with the monkey
under anesthesia and using sterile procedure. I use
methods I was taught by a human eye surgeon, basically
the same approach used to operate on the eye muscles
of children who have crossed eyes.  We do *not* slice
the eye open with a scalpel: instead, we use a special
kind of (tiny) scissors to carefully dissect the outer
tissue away, exposing the tough skin of the eye, called
the sclera.  We carefully suture a 16 mm diameter coil
the sclera, outside the eye (not in it).  We close the
outer tissue with sutures.  The monkeys receive the
same pain killers post-op as humans do, and within
3-5 days, it is not possible to see which eye carries
the coil.  They do not appear to be aware of the coil
and we see no evidence that it causes them discomfort.
You see, this is a very carefully performed and perfected
microsurgical procedure designed to place a measuring
device on the eye *without* affecting the integrity
of the eye or vision, or causing any discomfort.

Other questions?

I stated I was horrified by his application description of how the monkeys were killed by an aortic formalin injection. I also asked how he felt personally when he killed a monkey. His response was:

1) We seldom kill monkeys any more.  Almost all
of ours (~4 per year) are explanted, vasectomized
(not my idea), and adopted with a clean bill of
health to various sanctuaries.

2) The reason the protocol has a plan for killing
them, which involves basically kiling them with
an overdose of barbiturate anesthesia and then
perfusing them with formalin, is that we have to
put everything in the protocol that we *might*
do.  We have had to kill one monkey in the past
year for medical reasons, but that is the first
in a long time.

3) I do not mind being confronted by direct,
honest questions.  We can even agree to disagree!
But I do object to living in terror that someone
will be attempting to burn my house down, which is
where I am right now.