Reuters has reviewed documents showing that Neuralink, a neurotechnology company owned by Elon Musk, is currently under investigation for possible animal welfare violations (deaths) during experiments/testing. This may be due to multiple complaints from staff members who claim that the animal testing process has been rushed and is causing unnecessary suffering and deaths.
Neuralink Corp is in the process of developing a brain implant (chip) that has the potential to help paralyzed walk again and correct other neurological problems. The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched a federal investigation recently whether there were violations of the Animal Welfare Act - which covers the way animals are treated during research and testing processes.
The investigation aligns with recent allegations by Neuralink employees that Elon Musk pressured them to speed up development of the chip. That pressure led to testing animal according to dozens of Neuralink documents and interviews with more than 20 current and former employees obtained by Reuters. Those failed tests had to be repeated on different animals, increasing the number of animals used and unnecessarily killed, according to company reports, including previously undisclosed messages, audio recordings, emails, presentations and more.
The government is investigating Neuralink — that much is clear. What’s not so clear are the details of that investigation, or whether it ties into issues raised by employees in interviews with Reuters. A spokesman for the USDA inspector general declined to comment when asked about the situation. Under U.S. regulations, there is no set number of animals that companies can use for research purposes, and scientists have a great deal of freedom in deciding how and when to use animals in their experiments. While this federal investigation is ongoing, filings show that Neuralink has passed all previous inspections by the USDA without issue.
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In total, the company has killed about 1,500 animals in experiments since 2018, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys. Research is also being done on mice and rats. The information comes from Reuters, which reviewed records, as well as sources with first-hand knowledge of the company animal testing work. The same sources noted that this number is only a rough estimate because Neuralink does not keep precise records of how many animals have been used and killed.
The deaths of animals during Neuralink's experiments do not mean that the company is violating animal laws or that it is going against standard research practices. In fact, many companies use animals for experiments to help improve human healthcare. These companies feel pressure to get products out quickly, so the animals involved in the tests are often killed at the end of an experiment. This allows scientists to perform a post-mortem examination of the animal and collect more data.
However, current and former Neuralink employees say the number of animal deaths could have been lower if not for Elon Musk’s demands to speed up the research. According to Reuters, several animals appear to have died due to human error. Three current and former employees said that the errors, which weakened the research value of the experiments and required them to be repeated, led to the killing of more animals. They attributed the errors to inadequate preparation by staff working under extreme pressure.
One employee is said to have written an angry letter to colleagues earlier this year, stressing the need to overhaul the way the company organizes animal surgeries. Today’s hectic schedule leaves employees underprepared and overworked, struggling to meet deadlines. They often make last-minute changes before surgeries, which increases the risks to animal safety.
Elon Musk has been pushing employees hard to speed up Neuralink’s progress, which relies heavily on animal testing, current and former employees said. Earlier this year, the CEO sent staff an article about Swiss researchers who developed an electrical implant that helped a paralyzed man walk again. “We could allow people to use their hands and walk again in everyday life!” he wrote to staff on Feb. 8. Ten minutes later, he wrote: “Overall, we’re just not moving fast enough. It’s driving me crazy!”
In order to convince employees to work harder and move faster, Musk has repeatedly told them to pretend they have a bomb tied around their heads, three sources told Reuters.
According to five employees who worked on Neuralink’s animal experiments, concerns were raised internally about the company’s testing methodology. They say they suggested a more conventional approach where researchers would test one thing at a time in an animal study and draw conclusions before moving on to other tests. Instead, these people say Neuralink is rolling out tests quickly and sequentially without first resolving issues from the early tests or drawing full conclusions. The result: more animals are tested and killed overall because this repetitive process leads back to earlier stages of testing.
Additionally, some Neuralink employees said the company's trials have raised questions internally about the quality of the data, which could potentially delay Musk's plans to begin human trials within six months.
While the FDA is responsible for approving a company's medical devices and related testing, the USDA regulates how that company treats animals in research under the Animal Welfare Act.
Missed deadlines and ruined experiments
According to company documents and Reuters interviews with eight current and former employees, Musk has grown impatient with Neuralink as the company repeatedly missed deadlines to win regulatory approval to begin human clinical trials.
It’s worth noting that in some ways, Neuralink’s treatment of animals is much better than other research companies, according to what employees said in interviews. The company’s leaders have boasted internally about building a “monkey Disneyland” where lab animals can roam freely at the company’s Austin, Texas, facility, according to a former employee. In Neuralink’s early years, Elon Musk told employees that he wanted the monkeys at his San Francisco Bay Area facility to live in a “Taj Mahal for monkeys,” said a former employee who overheard the comment. Another employee recalled Musk saying that he didn’t like using animals for research and wanted to make sure they were “the happiest animals” while they were alive.
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However, during the experiments, things didn't go so well.
The first complaints about the company’s testing involved its initial collaboration with the University of California, Davis to conduct experiments. In February, an animal rights group, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, filed a complaint with the USDA accusing the Neuralink-UC Davis project of botched surgical procedures that killed monkeys. The group alleged that surgeons used the wrong materials twice, which led to two monkeys suffering and dying, while other monkeys suffered various complications from the implants.
The company has acknowledged that it killed six monkeys, on the advice of UC Davis veterinary staff, due to health problems caused by experiments. It called the problem with the material a “complication” from using an “ FDA.” In response to a Reuters inquiry, a UC Davis spokesperson shared a previous public statement defending its research with Neuralink and saying it follows all laws and regulations.
The USDA inspector general has launched a formal investigation into the animal rights organization's complaint.
Employee concerns
In 2021, 25 of 60 pigs used in research died unnecessarily because of mistakes Neuralink made about the size of the implant (chip) in their heads. With more careful preparation, this could have been avoided, according to a person with knowledge of the situation and documents seen by Reuters.
The mistake worried Neuralink researchers. In May 2021, Viktor Kharazia – a scientist – wrote to his colleagues and stated that the mistake could potentially be considered a “red flag” for the FDA people who would be reviewing the study. His colleagues agreed with him and so they decided to repeat the experiment with 36 sheep. Unfortunately, all of the animals – both pigs and sheep – had died after the procedures that took place.
Similar mistakes were made in other animals during the tests, resulting in their deaths.
Employees have sometimes pushed back against Musk’s demands to move quickly. In a company meeting several months ago, some Neuralink employees protested after a manager said Elon Musk had encouraged them to perform a complex surgery on pigs soon. The employees resisted, arguing that the complexity of the surgery would lengthen the time the pigs would be under anesthesia, jeopardizing their health and recovery. They argued that they first needed to figure out how to reduce the time it would take to perform the surgery.
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Although Neuralink executives have said they only test animals when there are no other alternatives for research, company documents and messaging suggest otherwise. For example, during a YouTube on November 30, Musk said the surgeries were performed at a later stage to confirm whether the device works as intended, not to test early hypotheses. He went on to say that “we are extremely careful” to ensure that animal testing is done sparingly and only as an absolute last resort, after other methods have been tried.
However, Neuralink files reviewed by Reuters contained numerous reports of exploratory surgeries over many years, and three people with knowledge of the company's research categorically rejected the claim that Neuralink avoids exploratory animal testing.
Animal experimentation is a controversial topic that provokes passionate debates between supporters and opponents of the practice. In general, animal experiments and testing are subject to strict regulations designed to protect the welfare of the animal. In most cases, the goal of the experiments is to improve human health by developing new treatments and better understanding diseases, but it is sad to hear that animals die during these tests.
Source: www.theguardian.com
