DECATUR COUNTY, Ga. - The future of a planned $396 million monkey-breeding facility in southwest Georgia could be on shaky ground after county commissioners reportedly voted to take back their support for the project.
WALB reports that at a meeting on Tuesday morning, members of the Decatur County Commission unanimously voted to rescind their previous approval of a 10-year tax abatement.
Safer Human Medicine wants to build the 200-acre complex, which would eventually hold up to 30,000 long-tailed macaques that would be sold to universities and pharmaceutical companies for medical research. The company says it plans to employ up to 263 workers.
The company is led by executives who formerly worked for two other companies that provide animals for medical testing. One of those companies, Charles River Laboratories, came under investigation last year for obtaining wild monkeys that were smuggled from Cambodia. The monkeys were falsely labeled as bred in captivity, as is required by U.S. rules, federal prosecutors have alleged. The company suspended shipments from Cambodia.
Charles River had proposed a similar facility in Brazoria County, Texas, south of Houston, but it has been stalled by local opposition.
The Bainbridge facility would provide a domestic source of monkeys to offset imports, the company said. Medical researchers use the animals to test drugs before human trials and to research infectious diseases and chronic conditions like brain disorders.
"In the aftermath of the pandemic, we learned the hard way that our researchers in the U.S. need reliable access to healthy primates to develop and evaluate the safety of potentially life-saving drugs and therapies for you, your family, your friends, and neighbors," Safer Human Medicine wrote in an open letter to the Bainbridge community. "Many of the medicines in your medical cabinets today would not exist without this essential medical research and without these primates, research comes to a halt."
But many in the community, as well as the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have said they fear the possibility of monkeys escaping into the community along with other harms.
While the project and tax abatement were approved in December, officials said the meeting in which the vote took place violated the Open Meetings Act.
"We heard the public outcry. We heard the public saying they didn’t want it here. There have been a lot of comments and questions asked, and we thought it best for the unity of our community to vote against this project," said Pete Stephens, Decatur County Commission chairman told WALB.
In a statement to FOX 5, a PETA spokesman said that they were proud to stand with the residents of Decatur County to fight against the facility.
"This monkey prison is sickening on its face. It also threatens to sicken the residents of Decatur County in addition to the monkeys it would imprison and shuttle to laboratories to be tormented for the remainder of their short, terrifying lives in experiments that wouldn’t aid human health," the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Safer Human Medicine told WALB that the commission's decision was based on "fear and fabrication from a smear campaign propelled by voices outside the community."
While Tuesday's vote doesn't cancel the project, it could possibly lead to legal challenges in the future.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.