IOPList.Org

“Extreme Suffering”:
15 of 23 Monkeys with Elon Musk’s
Neuralink Brain Chips Reportedly Died


"Pretty much every single monkey that had had
implants put in their head suffered from pretty
debilitating health effects"




Elon Musk (photo by Duncan Hall) and
Pager, a Neuralink test subject
(via Neuralink)



Wren Graves

February 11, 2022
2:56pm ET



Out of a total of 23 monkeys implanted with Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chips
at the University of California Davis between 2017 and 2020,
at least 15 reportedly died.

Via Business Insider and the New York Post, the news comes from the
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an animal-rights group
that viewed over 700 pages of documents, veterinary records, and necropsy
reports through a public records request at the university.

Neuralink was founded in 2016 with a goal of helping people recover from
traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, curing depression and other mental
health disorders, and connecting humans to the internet for everything from
music streaming to near-telepathic communication. The company has often
touted its successes, such as a demonstration on a pig in 2020, and
a 2021 video of a macaque playing Pong with its mind.

The project has attracted a great deal of interest from celebrities like Grimes and
Lil Uzi Vert, and people suffering from paralysis often petition Musk on social media
to be a part of human trials. Musk previously said that he hoped to begin human
trials in 2021, but that goal has been pushed back to 2022. Based on the PCRM’s
findings, the brain chips may be nowhere near ready.

“Pretty much every single monkey that had had implants put in their head suffered
from pretty debilitating health effects,” said the PCRM’s research advocacy director
Jeremy Beckham. “They were, frankly, maiming and killing the animals.”

Neuralink chips were implanted by drilling holes into the monkeys’ skulls. One primate
developed a bloody skin infection and had to be euthanized. Another was discovered
missing fingers and toes, “possibly from self-mutilation or some other unspecified trauma,”
and had to be put down. A third began uncontrollably vomiting shortly after surgery,
and days later “appeared to collapse from exhaustion/fatigue.” An autopsy revealed
the animal suffered from a brain hemorrhage.

The PCRM filed a complaint with the the US Department of Agriculture on Thursday,
accusing UC Davis and Neuralink of nine violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
“Many, if not all, of the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate
animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments,
which were performed in pursuit of developing what Neuralink and Elon Musk have
publicly described as a ‘brain-machine interface,’” the group wrote in the complaint.

“These highly invasive implants and their associated hardware, which are inserted in
the brain after drilling holes in the animals’ skulls, have produced recurring infections
in the animals, significantly compromising their health, as well as the integrity of the research.”

A spokesperson for UC Davis responded to the complaint, saying, “We strive to provide
the best possible care to animals in our charge. Animal research is strictly regulated,
and UC Davis follows all applicable laws and regulations including those of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.”

The spokesperson added that the university stopped working with Neuralink in 2020.

Neuralink has not issued a response.