Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1983 September 26
Nancy Jaax
I had to wake up extremely early to be able to get to the USAMRIID and had to
also put on a spacesuit because it was a biosafety level 4. I had Tony Johnson going
with me to give me some backup and company. We entered the room together and
inspected the monkeys together. There were two banks of cages that were positioned
facing each other along opposite walls of the room. Together we replugged our hoses
and looked into the cages. The two isolated monkeys were the control monkeys and
they were not injected with Ebola so they were healthy. When we appeared in front of
them, the healthy monkeys went nuts because humans in space suits made them
nervous. Meanwhile, the other cages which contained the Ebola injected monkeys were
quiet as I had expected. They did not show signs of the usual monkey behaviour and
were not alert. They didnt even eat their morning biscuits. This was typical because
these monkeys were infected with Ebola Zaire . Gene Johnsons drug did not seem to
work on the monkeys because there was no signs of improvement. There even were
two monkeys that crashed and bled out. They did not show any facial expression, had
bloody noses, their eyes were half-open, glassy, and brilliant red, with dilated pupils. I
felt a wave of unease and was distressed by the sight of dead and suffering monkeys.
This was because I believed that as a veterinarian, it was my duty to heal animals and
relieve their suffering. I began the removal procedure as Johnson watched me carefully
because the infected monkey could wake up and a bite would be fatal. I inspected the
monkey first by looking through the bars, and saw that it was a large male which was
dead. I pinched the toe to check for eye movement and when there was none, I got the
go ahead from Johnson and took the monkey out. Together we carried the monkey to a
biohazard container which we took into a necropsy room. The animals cavity was a lake
of blood and there was a lot of internal hemorrhaging. We popped open the skull and
removed the brain, eyes, and spinal cord.
Space Suit
December 4, Monday
Jerry Jaax
I put a Racal suit on and entered the airlock to the hotside. The place was
trashed and it looked as if humans had fled from there. The mission was to euthanize all
the monkeys. I saw a room that was full of monkeys and all of them were looking at me.
I fed some monkeys the biscuits because they were starving and I didnt want them to
suffer. I could see that the agent had gone through the whole building. Charlotte started
filling syringes with ketamine, the anesthetic. I took the syringe into the monkey room
and fitted it to the socket of a pole syringe. The sergeant fished his mop handle into a
cage and pinned a monkey. I then opened the cage and watched the monkey making
sure that it did not rush me. After that, I slid the pole syringe through the open door and
gave the monkey a dose of anesthetic. I took the syringe out and closed the door and
the monkeys began to go to sleep under anesthesia. When the monkeys were asleep
the fatal dose of T-61 would be injected through the heart and kill the monkey. This was
done until all the monkeys were dead. It was the hardest thing I had ever done as a
veterinarian.