Campaign Updates
Harvard University experimenter Margaret Livingstone tears baby monkeys away from their mothers shortly after birth and imprisons them in cold steel cages, where they’re given only a pathetic cloth “surrogate” to cling to for comfort. She’s sewn some of the babies’ eyes shut, leaving them in complete darkness for up to a year. Help end her morally depraved experiments.
Monkey Defenders Spotlight University’s Hidden Victims at Global Alumni Events
March 19, 2025
Animal allies in the U.S. and Europe shared information about Margaret Livingstone’s experiments with Harvard alumni arriving for the university’s Global Networking Night events in various cities, urging attendees to demand an end to her ghastly tests.
Giant PETA ‘Monkeys’ Loom Over Harvard Alumni Event
February 19, 2025
A towering pair of inflatable “monkeys” wearing blindfolds and a troop of PETA protesters greeted Harvard University alumni arriving at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, for an event headlined by university President Alan Garber. The animal defenders held signs reading, “Harvard President Garber: End Baby Monkey Tests!” and distributed hundreds of leaflets to attendees and passersby.
Animal Ally Blasts University’s Rock-Bottom Ethics With Stones Left Around Campus
December 15, 2024
A PETA supporter left hand-painted rocks all over Harvard Medical School’s campus, calling out the school’s heart of stone for monkeys exploited and killed in Margaret Livingstone’s laboratory.
Vancouver Animal Defenders Blast Baby Monkey Abuse
December 14, 2024
Members of the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society protested outside the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems at the Vancouver Convention Centre in British Columbia, Canada, educating attendees about the horrors that Margaret Livingstone inflicts on baby monkeys. Livingstone authored one of the papers presented at the conference.
Game-Weekend Ad Pressures Harvard to Notch a Win for Monkeys
November 22–23, 2024
PETA slammed Margaret Livingstone’s shameful experiments on baby monkeys with an ad in a special edition of Harvard’s campus newspaper, The Crimson, coinciding with the Harvard-Yale football game. Animal allies also shared information about Livingstone’s abuse with spectators entering Harvard Stadium.
Protesters Put the Squeeze on Administrators at Med School Town Hall
November 21, 2024
PETA supporters protested outside Harvard Medical School’s all-staff town hall meeting, holding giant images of monkeys trapped in laboratories and signs reading, “Harvard’s Margaret Livingstone Kidnaps Babies.”
Feds Slap Harvard With Official Warning After Monkey’s Tail Was Broken
November 4, 2024
In a rare move, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued an official warning to Harvard Medical School for a critical violation of federal animal welfare law in which an experimenter had failed to secure a solid barrier between two cages to which monkeys were confined, resulting in a broken tail for one of the primates. It’s the latest stain on the school’s bloody and pockmarked record of animal welfare violations in its laboratories, including Margaret Livingstone’s, where an infant monkey strangled to death.
Massive ‘Monkeys’ Lead Protest Outside World’s Largest Neuroscience Conference
October 5, 2024
Animal advocates rallied outside the 2024 Society for Neuroscience conference at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, chanting into bullhorns and accompanied by two 8-foot-tall crying “monkeys.” The protesters called on the National Institutes of Health to stop funding Margaret Livingstone and several of her fellow animal-tormenting conference participants, including government experimenter Elisabeth Murray and the University of Washington’s Elizabeth Buffalo and Michele Basso.
Monkey Advocates Across North America Spread News of Infant Abuse to Harvard Alums
September 11, 2024
PETA supporters greeted Harvard alums attending the university’s “Welcome to Your City” events at various locations in the U.S. and Canada, sharing information about how attendees could help infant monkeys pried away from their mothers and tormented at their alma mater.
Activists Handing Out Popcorn Pressure Harvard to Find a Kernel of Kindness
September 4, 2024
Monkey allies buttered up Harvard students heading to class during the first week of the fall semester with free bags of popcorn and information about how they could help infant monkeys imprisoned in Margaret Livingstone’s laboratory. Students and staff also noticed provocative pro-monkey posters and stencil art popping up across campus.
PETA Vice President Crashes Harvard Event, Demands End to Baby Monkey Abuse
July 31, 2024
PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna took a stand at Harvard University’s “A Celebration of Summer in Washington” event at the University Club in Washington, D.C., appealing to Harvard Interim President Alan Garber to end Margaret Livingstone’s cruel experiments on infant monkeys. Chandna pointed out that hundreds of experts, including Dr. Jane Goodall and members of Harvard’s own community, have joined PETA in condemning the twisted tests.
Commotion Across the Ocean: Campaign to End Monkey Misery Greets Harvard President in Madrid
June 27, 2024
Chanting and holding signs reading, “Harvard Experimenter Margaret Livingstone Kidnaps Babies,” activists with Abolición Vivisección rallied outside a Harvard alumni gathering in Madrid to urge Interim President Alan Garber, who was attending the event, to end the university’s disturbing experiments on infant monkeys.
Protester Crashes Alumni Day Event With Sparkly Surprise for Interim President
May 31, 2024
A PETA supporter armed with a sign reading, “Harvard President Garber: End Baby Monkey Tests!” disrupted Interim President Alan Garber’s Alumni Day speech with a well-timed glitter bomb while shouting, “For the baby monkeys!” The protester was escorted out of the event by security and arrested.
Monkey Defenders to Margaret Livingstone: An End to Your Experiments Is ‘WANTED’
April 25, 2024
“WANTED” posters blasting Margaret Livingstone for her depraved experiments on infant monkeys appeared in Boston near the Harvard Medical School campus. Provocative stencil art designed by street artist Praxis conveyed a similar message on city sidewalks.
PETA’s Creepy ‘Concierge’ Haunts Harvard Alumni Event at Posh Four Seasons Hotel
April 16, 2024
An “experimenter” wearing a welding mask and accompanied by a screaming “baby monkey” in a black-draped crib greeted Harvard alums arriving at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C., for an event headlined by Harvard Interim President Alan Garber. The creepy “concierge” mimicked the cruel tests of Harvard experimenter Margaret Livingstone, who rips newborn monkeys away from their mothers, cages them alone, and requires her staff to wear welding masks so that the infants never see a face.
From Los Angeles to London, PETA Supporters Urge Harvard Alums to Speak Up for Monkeys
March 13, 2024
Monkey advocates in the U.S., Canada, and Europe greeted Harvard University alums arriving for Global Networking Night events in various cities, sharing information about how attendees could help end baby monkey abuse at their alma mater.
Called Out in the Capital: Harvard’s Money-Wasting Monkey ‘Disco’ Prompts D.C. Ad Blitz
March 12, 2024
PETA slammed the National Institutes of Health for bankrolling Margaret Livingstone’s monstrous reign of terror over monkeys with a mesmerizing full-page ad in the Washington Examiner, while a lifelike rendering of a screaming baby monkey under a flashing disco ball—evoking the real-life torment that monkeys experience in Livingstone’s laboratory—greeted Washington, D.C.–area users on the websites of Politico and The Hill.
First Baby Monkey Torture, Now Alleged Research Misconduct: Is Harvard’s Moral Compass Shattered?
February 2, 2024
Harvard Medical School’s abysmal reputation for abusing animals in deadly experiments, already cemented by veteran baby monkey torturer Margaret Livingstone, has been further solidified following back-to-back allegations that five Harvard professors manipulated data in dozens of published papers. The experimenters injected their animal victims with toxins, caused animals to grow tumors, and killed and dissected them. Read more.
PETA Ad Spotlights Harvard’s ‘Disco’ of Despair for Newborn Monkeys
February 2, 2024
PETA blasted Margaret Livingstone’s latest dance with depravity via a mesmerizing full-page ad in Harvard University’s campus newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. In her most recent experiments, Livingstone forces infant monkeys to wear goggles that simulate relentlessly flashing strobe lights, trapping them inside a terrifying and disorienting disco of sorts for 18 months.
‘Monkeys’ Tormented by Flashing Lights Call For Lights Out on Harvard’s Latest Cruelty
January 24, 2024
PETA supporters wearing monkey masks rallied outside the office of Harvard University’s president while “experimenters” in lab coats tormented them with flashing strobe lights in a bizarre scene mimicking Harvard experimenter Margaret Livingstone’s latest cruel test. Livingstone permanently separates baby monkeys from their mothers and makes them wear shuttered goggles that rapidly open and close, forcing them to endure a constant strobe-light effect for 18 months. PETA also urged former President Barack Obama to condemn Livingstone’s twisted experiments, for which she’s received more than $2 million in taxpayer funds from the National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN Initiative. The initiative was launched during the Obama administration.
Do You Hear What I Hear? PETA’s Banned-From-TV Ad Rings Through Holiday Markets
December 21, 2023
Holiday market shoppers in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, heard more than sleigh bells jingling as PETA’s mobile billboard broadcast the recorded cries of distressed infant monkeys who had been separated from their mothers, just like monkeys in Margaret Livingstone’s Harvard laboratory. The ad, rejected by Boston TV stations, called on shoppers to urge Harvard’s administration to extend the spirit of peace and goodwill to all beings this holiday season by ending Livingstone’s depraved experiments.
Nude PETA ‘Monkeys’ Crash Harvard-Yale Football Game to Protest Monkey Experiments
November 18, 2023
Two nearly nude PETA supporters bodypainted as macaques and holding signs that read, “Harvard: End Monkey Tests!” stormed the field during the third quarter of this year’s Harvard-Yale football game in New Haven, Connecticut, in protest of experimenter Margaret Livingstone’s twisted sensory deprivation tests on infant monkeys. Police arrested the two “monkeys” and a third protester wearing a shirt that read, “Harvard: Shut Down the Monkey Lab.”
PETA Supporters Rally for Animals Outside World’s Largest Neuroscience Convention
November 13, 2023
Led by an 8-foot-tall “crying monkey,” PETA supporters demanded an end to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) funding of Margaret Livingstone’s cruel and failed experiments during the Neuroscience 2023 conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The protesters also called for funding cuts to several of her fellow animal-tormenting conference participants—NIH’s Elisabeth Murray, Johns Hopkins University’s Shreesh Mysore, and the University of Massachusetts–Amherst’s Agnès Lacreuse.
A Crewtiful Sight: PETA’s Plea to End Monkey Misery Soars Over Head of the Charles Regatta
October 22, 2023
As thousands of spectators and competitors—including from Harvard University—gathered in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the Head of the Charles Regatta rowing competition, PETA flew an impossible-to-miss banner overhead that read, “Harvard: Say ‘Way Nuff’ to Baby Monkey Tests!” The sky-high display referenced the rowing term “way enough,” a command to stop whatever one is doing.
New Semester, Same Torture: PETA Ad Slams Harvard for Continuing to Abuse Monkeys
September 29, 2023
PETA called out Harvard in the university’s campus newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, with a stark full-page ad demanding that the school end its disturbing sensory-deprivation experiments on infant monkeys.
‘Bloody’ Masked ‘Experimenter’ and Shrieking ‘Baby’ Haunt Harvard’s First Day of Classes
September 5, 2023
Students arriving to Harvard University’s campus for the first day of classes were greeted by a PETA supporter wearing a welding mask and a “bloody” lab coat, sitting eerily in a rocking chair as a black-draped crib nearby emitted the sound of a monkey screaming. The chilling display evoked the disturbing experiments of Harvard Medical School’s Margaret Livingstone, who rips newborn monkeys away from their mothers and makes laboratory staff wear welding masks so that the infants never see a face.
PETA Files NIH Complaint After Feds Cite Harvard for Animal Welfare Violations
August 23, 2023
PETA has filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), urging it to withdraw funding from Harvard University after the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited Harvard Medical School for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. Experimenters overdosed a monkey with a compound and couldn’t even manage to properly monitor the health of monkeys who were purposely being kept thirsty to force their cooperation in experiments. These callous episodes of neglect took place under the same roof where Margaret Livingstone runs her NIH-funded cruel and pointless sensory deprivation experiments on baby monkeys.
Abducted Infants Replaced With Beanie Babies? PETA Urges Ty CEO to Condemn Monkey Abuse
August 8, 2023
With the new film The Beanie Bubble bringing the hottest collectible of the 1990s back into the spotlight, PETA sent a letter to inventor and Ty Inc. CEO Ty Warner urging him to condemn Harvard University’s bizarre sensory deprivation tests, in which experimenter Margaret Livingstone kidnaps newborn monkeys from their mothers and replaces them with Beanie Babies.
PETA Welcomes New Harvard President With Package of Pleas to Help Monkeys
July 6, 2023
PETA’s boxful of appeals to end experimenter Margaret Livingstone’s torment of baby macaques landed on the office doorstep of Harvard University’s new president, Claudine Gay, just in time to welcome her to her new role. The box included an infographic detailing these experiments, a block of to-do list–style sticky notes reminding her to shut down the laboratory, and a blinded “monkey” reminiscent of Livingstone’s real victims—all to prompt Gay not to look away from animal suffering.
Pro-Monkey Posters Appear Around Cambridge as Harvard Alums Gather on Campus
June 2, 2023
As former Harvard University students returned to campus for Alumni Day celebrations, they spotted posters that revealed their alma mater’s shocking involvement in the physical and psychological abuse of infant macaques.
Blindfolded Protesters Expose Harvard’s Hidden Cruelty at Commencement Ceremony
May 25, 2023
Blindfolded PETA supporters rallied outside Harvard University’s Johnston Gate, holding signs that read, “Harvard: Blind to Animal Suffering,” and demanding an end to Margaret Livingstone’s disturbing visual deprivation experiments on infant macaques. The passionate protest kicked off as thousands of graduating students and their friends and family members converged on Harvard Yard for the school’s main commencement ceremony. Some horrified onlookers immediately took action to help end the ghoulish tests, while others promised to pen personal messages to Harvard President Lawrence Bacow opposing the experiments.
Monkey Advocates Make Waves at Chicago’s Navy Pier as HMS Dean Gives Commencement Speech
May 15, 2023
PETA protesters calling for an end to Margaret Livingstone’s devastating experiments on baby monkeys rallied at Chicago’s Navy Pier, where Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley spoke at the commencement ceremony of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Supportive passersby cheered on the activists with thumbs-up and nods of approval and learned how they could join the protesters in speaking up for monkeys.
Activists Unmask Cruelty in Harvard Experimenter’s Laboratory With Slew of Signs in Cambridge
April 15 and May 9, 2023
PETA supporters plastered damning posters all over Harvard’s campus and downtown Cambridge, Massachusetts, bringing students face to (mask-covered) face with the horrors that infant monkeys endure in Margaret Livingstone’s laboratory. The provocative signs depict an experimenter obscuring his face with a welder’s mask, just as experimenters do in Livingstone’s laboratory to prevent the traumatized infants they’re handling from ever seeing a face.
Dressed to Kill: PETA Urges Experimenter to Spare Monkeys With Special Birthday Teelivery
April 3, 2023
Will Harvard Medical School’s Margaret Livingstone give monkeys the gift of liberation for her birthday this year? PETA’s stylish surprise for the animal experimenter—a T-shirt in Harvard crimson along with a card offering to help place the monkeys in her laboratory with reputable sanctuaries—encourages her to hang up her welding mask and try on the garb of a former experimenter instead.
Armed With Images of Tormented Monkeys, Dozens Descend on Campus to Protest ‘Harvard Horror’
March 7, 2023
Chants rang out across Harvard Yard as more than three dozen animal advocates rallied in Cambridge to demand an end to Harvard Medical School’s monstrous experiments on infant monkeys. Lining the bustling walkway outside Harvard’s Johnston Gate, the protesters wielded enlarged images of distressed monkeys imprisoned in the school’s laboratory and shared literature exposing the ghastly experiments with horrified passersby.
PETA Asks: Does Harvard Medical School Employ the New Boston Strangler?
February 16, 2023
Margaret Livingstone is murder on monkeys—and following the shocking strangulation death of a baby monkey in her Harvard Medical School laboratory, PETA is pointing out parallels to Massachusetts’ most notorious serial killer, the Boston Strangler. A shadowy, film noir–inspired advertisement depicting Livingstone alerted readers of the Boston Herald to the monkey killer in their midst. Activists widened the reach of this grisly news by plastering posters all over town.
‘Ethical Blindness’: PETA Skewers Harvard With Eye-Opening Ad in Boston Globe
February 12, 2023
Sewing infant monkeys’ eyes shut should have ended 40 years ago when Britches, a victim of this ghastly practice, was liberated from a University of California–Riverside laboratory. But Margaret Livingstone has repeated this horror at Harvard Medical School—and now PETA has called out her cruelty with an arresting full-page ad in The Boston Globe. Featuring images of Britches to represent the anguish that monkeys like him experience in her laboratory, the ad urges readers to call on Harvard to open its eyes to the suffering that it inflicts and end Livingstone’s disturbing experiments.
PETA Scientist and Other Experts Speak at Harvard Panel on Primate Experimentation
February 8, 2023
PETA neuroscientist Dr. Katherine Roe joined Harvard University psychologist Dr. Christine Webb, master of bioethics degree candidate Erin Sharoni, and animal welfare expert Dr. Larry Carbone for a stimulating discussion titled “Nonhuman Primates in Medical Research: The Good, Bad, and Ugly.” During the event—which was moderated by Kathy Meyer, a professor at Harvard Law School, and sponsored by the school’s Animal Law & Policy Program and its Animal Law Society—the panelists considered the ethics of Margaret Livingstone’s experiments on baby monkeys at Harvard Medical School as well as other uses of primates in experimentation. Watch the recording.
Dr. Jane Goodall and 380 Experts Urge NIH to Cut Funding for Livingstone’s Experiments
February 8, 2023
More than 380 scientists, doctors, academics, and lawyers from around the world—including renowned primatologists Dr. Jane Goodall, Dr. Ian Redmond, and Dr. Richard Wrangham—signed a letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) urging it to review and terminate its funding of Harvard Medical School’s cruel maternal and sensory deprivation experiments on macaques. Blasting both the scientific and ethical rationale for these experiments, the experts also called on NIH to take action to end other ethically and scientifically indefensible experiments on primates that it funds. The powerful letter was sponsored by Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic and the Wild Minds Lab at the University of St. Andrews School of Psychology and Neuroscience in Scotland.
Harvard Experimenter Deserves Coal This Year—PETA’s Mobile Message Shows Why
December 12, 2022
If anyone has earned a spot at the top of Santa’s “naughty” list, it’s Harvard experimenter Margaret Livingstone. The tormented shrieks of baby monkeys echoed through Cambridge, Massachusetts, as PETA’s mobile billboard blasted a video revealing her atrocities to students and holiday shoppers passing through Harvard Square.
Instaslammed! Using Targeted Social Media Ads, PETA Skewers Livingstone for Her Depraved Experiments
December 7, 2022
Flanked by images of tortured baby monkeys, the smiling face of experimenter Margaret Livingstone interrupted the stream of food photos and vacation selfies on the Facebook and Instagram feeds of Harvard University and Harvard Medical School students and employees. The ads invited concerned scrollers to urge Harvard to end Livingstone’s barbaric experiments on baby monkeys.
Monkey Tormenter Margaret Livingstone ‘Can’t Imagine Having More Fun Doing Anything Else’
November 17, 2022
How do you know if someone is an animal exploiter? Don’t worry—they’ll tell you. Prolific baby monkey torturer Margaret Livingstone does just that in her chapter of The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography, volume 9, a series that collects the stories of neuroscientists in their own words. Displaying not an ounce of remorse or self-awareness, she regales readers with (shock-)inspiring anecdotes about paralyzing lobsters with chemicals, devising her own torture device to deprive cats of sleep, and more. “I spend a lot of time now taking care of baby monkeys while wearing a mask so they never see any faces, and I can’t imagine having more fun doing anything else,” she writes. Read more.
One Monkey Dies, Another Loses Finger in Margaret Livingstone’s Lawless Laboratory
November 10, 2022
Given her habit of separating vulnerable infants from their bereft mothers, we already knew that Margaret Livingstone had a penchant for psychologically breaking monkeys. Now we know what else she has a penchant for breaking: the law. Federal reports obtained by PETA reveal that because of violations of federal animal welfare regulations in two separate instances, one monkey strangled to death and another sustained injuries so severe that the animal’s finger had to be amputated. Livingstone’s laboratory also earned a write-up from the feds after she failed to wear necessary personal protective equipment while experimenting on a restrained monkey, the documents show. Read more.
Flurry of Flyposters Blankets Harvard’s Campus as Controversy Swirls Over Baby Monkey Experiments
November 2, 2022
Cambridge, Massachusetts, has yet to see its first snowfall of the season, but amid the approach of colder weather, activists brought to campus a storm of another sort: eye-catching flyposters slamming Margaret Livingstone’s crude and psychologically disastrous experiments on infant monkeys.
Close Encounters With the Unkind: PETA’s Virtual Reality ‘Aliens’ ‘Abduct’ Harvard Students
October 31, 2022
PETA’s “UFO” landed at Harvard University just in time for Halloween, drawing curious students inside to experience firsthand (in virtual reality) the fear and confusion of being abducted from one’s home and family to be exploited for painful and invasive experiments. Students who participated were far from the only “abduction victims” on campus: Baby monkeys in Margaret Livingstone’s laboratory—who are pried from their distraught mothers shortly after birth—know this terror all too well.
Direct Action Everywhere’s Founder Dismantles Harvard’s ‘Necessary Evil’ Rationale for Twisted Tests on Baby Monkeys
October 28, 2022
The most stomach-churning evil can be rationalized, normalized, and even claimed to be necessary, writes animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung—but it can be challenged with compassion. Hsiung, the founder of animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, calls out the factual and ethical leaps in Harvard University’s statement in support of Margaret Livingstone and highlights the story of his mother, who understood that barbaric experiments like Livingstone’s were wrong despite suffering from the same terminal illness that Livingstone implausibly claims she’s helping to cure.
More Than 250 Scientists Urge PNAS: Retract Livingstone’s Unethical Paper Now
October 19, 2022
Citing “the unethical practices and research standards it promotes and its failure to advance scientific knowledge,” more than 250 animal behavior researchers, graduate students, and postdoctoral students joined forces for a letter urging PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) to retract Harvard University experimenter Margaret Livingstone’s most recent paper, “Triggers for Mother Love.” “[T]he time for this unethical treatment of nonhuman animals for research is over,” they wrote. “We cannot ask monkeys for consent, but we can stop using, publishing, and in this case actively promoting cruel methods that knowingly cause extreme distress.”
Prevent More Irreversible Harm—Revoke Approval for Livingstone’s Experiments, PETA Scientist Urges Harvard
October 12, 2022
After poring over Margaret Livingstone’s experimental protocols, PETA neuroscientist Katherine Roe has her own findings to report: The experiments are scientifically and morally unsound. Roe detailed her concerns in a letter to Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow and other school officials, urging them to revoke university approval for the psychologically devastating tests. “It’s deeply concerning that experiments that induce irreversible harm on infant primates are permitted at Harvard Medical School at all, let alone allowed to occur for several decades,” she wrote.
What You Can Do
Text* BABY to 73822 to urge Harvard’s administration to close Livingstone’s laboratory and release the remaining monkeys to a sanctuary immediately.
*U.S. only. Message and data rates may apply. Periodic messaging. Text STOP to end or HELP for info. Full terms are at PETA.vg/txt.
“Campaign Updates: Harvard’s Sensory-Deprivation Experiments on Monkeys” page background photo of a mother monkey holding a stuffed animal and screaming: Figure 2 in “Triggers for Mother Love” | Margaret S. Livingstone | CC BY-NC-ND