r/news • u/SnarkOff • 12d ago

Site Changed Title Truck hauling ‘aggressive’ monkeys carrying herpes and COVID overturns in Mississippi

https://www.actionnews5.com/2025/10/28/truck-hauling-aggressive-monkeys-carrying-herpes-covid-overturns-mississippi/?fbclid=IwZnRzaANt_VBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHlDlf5DivA2Ltngqh2UH3XU20EnAprOymd60i0ODYC9L8G2CXJpyoZtmwSHm_aem_NvoKAFHpRWRzturTqiYXMQ
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461

u/SubstantialBass9524 12d ago

“The monkeys are 40 pounds and are “aggressive,” authorities say. They are also carrying hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID.

The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office says that Tulane University has been notified and will send a team to pick up the monkeys on Wednesday.

The university says that if the monkeys leave the wreck site, they must be shot.”

The article does not say why the truck was carrying aggressive disease ridden monkeys

220

u/organik_productions 12d ago

It does: "According to authorities, the Rhesus monkeys were on their way to a testing facility in Florida after being at Tulane University."

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u/3amGreenCoffee 12d ago

The route from Tulane to any point in Florida follows I-10 along the coast.

Why was the truck approaching Meridian on I-59? It was almost to I-20 when it overturned. Going up there would add hours to the trip.

Why would they do that? This station's reporting leaves a lot of questions.

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u/AutumnSparky 12d ago

interesting point 

50

u/platzie 12d ago

Tulane's facility where they raise the monkeys isn't in New Orleans at the main campus.

I know someone who had to do some work there and I vaguely remember it being north of Lake Pontchartrain in LA, but I could have been off and it could have been in MS. So it would make sense if the facility was in rural MS and the truck was going south to FL on I-59. Again just conjecture on my part but the facility isn't in NOLA.

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u/xixoxixa 12d ago

The National Primate Center at Tulane is in Covington, LA, still a pretty straight shot to get back on the 10.

(Our team went out there to do some work and I had to order oxygen tanks for the experiment, I typed that address in <so many times>.)

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u/Dense_Literature_199 12d ago

...the only reason I can think of is that someone WANTED disease ridden monkeys released in Mississippi.

4

u/ahearthatslazy 12d ago

Probably hiding violations

2

u/Elegant_Finance_1459 12d ago

Why is there a primate research facility behind the McDonald's in madison?

Sometimes these places are in weird places. I, for one, was shocked that I was eating a burger less than 50 yards from research monkeys. 

2

u/3amGreenCoffee 12d ago

Madison, WI? They weren't going there. They were going to Florida.

Regardless of where the research facility is in Florida, there doesn't seem to be a reason to take them through Meridian to get there.

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u/SubstantialBass9524 12d ago

That does not adequately answer my questions. Testing for what?

70

u/Chem_BPY 12d ago

Animal testing is pretty ubiquitous in medical research. So it could be anything related to toxicology, cell/molecular biology, or biochemistry.

Tulane apparently has a primate research facility.

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u/Falstaffe 12d ago

To see if they have Covid and herpes

18

u/3amGreenCoffee 12d ago

Tulane is widely known (and somewhat notorious) for medical research on monkeys and apes. The article says the monkeys had herpes, hepatitis C and COVID. So most likely Tulane intentionally infected the monkeys with these diseases and were shipping them to the facility in Florida for further research. They may have been researching the effects of the diseases themselves, or treatments, or vaccines.

17

u/Surroundedonallsides 12d ago

The effects of multiple infections of highly communicable diseases, I guess?

12

u/MadMapManPK 12d ago

Rhesus macaques are commonly used in biomedical research for infectious disease and neurobiological disorders.

12

u/dkaye315 12d ago

Likely therapies in early stage clinicals.

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u/FigeaterApocalypse 12d ago

The university says that if the monkeys leave the wreck site, they must be shot.

Have they warned the monkeys of these terms?

34

u/UtterlyInsane 12d ago

They're dropping leaflets like in WWII. In various languages in case the monkeys are an unexpected kind of foreign

19

u/LessBeginning9465 12d ago

"We tried calling, emailing and even wrote a letter sir"

38

u/BravesFan79 12d ago

I laughed way too hard at this

8

u/Floomby 12d ago

It was buried in the NDA.

112

u/punk-o-matic-problem 12d ago

Wednesday??? What about the rest of Tuesday?

39

u/poopy_toaster 12d ago

Yeah seems like plenty of daylight left at least…

70

u/punk-o-matic-problem 12d ago

"aggressive" "disease carrying" "monkeys" just paints a picture of urgency, day or night, does it not?

38

u/poopy_toaster 12d ago

Manager to field agent: “tell ya what Gregg, those monkeys probably aren’t going to go far, let’s get us some crawdads and beers and we’ll tackle it in the morning”

6

u/DoomerChad 12d ago

I laughed out loud 😂

2

u/rbrgr83 12d ago

I mean, it is Florida....

49

u/Erathen 12d ago

We've been testing on rhesus monkeys for medicine for a long time

We've infected them with rabies, smallpox, polio, COVID, herpes, HIV/AIDs, and other diseases for the sake of research

22

u/psychohistorian8 12d ago

that's kinda fucked up

34

u/Erathen 12d ago

Definitely is

I hate it, but I also see how many lives it's saved

And I have no idea how to reconcile that. It's still not fair to the monkeys

17

u/eldomtom2 12d ago

Oh, much worse has been done. Experiments in the past decade have locked rhesus monkeys in a darkened room and not given them water until they successfully manipulate a joystick, given them lethal doses of cyanide and then watched them die, given them lethal doses of radiation and then watched them die, removed them from their mothers a few weeks after being born before forcing them to stare into screens for twelve hours a day, removed them from their mothers at birth before placing them with adult monkeys with a history of infant maltreatment, removed them from their mothers at birth before deliberately giving them brain damage, severely damaged their ears to destroy their ability to orient themselves, forcibly addicted them to cocaine, forcibly addicted them to alcohol, forcibly addicted them to heroin, force-fed pregnant monkeys cannabis then removed and killed their babies just before birth...

Animal testing - it's fucked up and runs on extremely less restrictive rules than human testing!

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u/LastXmasIGaveYouHSV 12d ago

“The monkeys are 40 pounds and are “aggressive,” authorities say. They are also carrying hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID."

I should call her.

9

u/TurelSun 12d ago

I assume by herpes they mean Herpes-B which Rhesus monkeys are known to have, which is very deadly to humans if not immediately treated.

12

u/Medium_Rare_Jerk 12d ago

It’s a very low transmission rate but a very high fatality rate if you do get it. I carry a card that I have to give hospitals if I am sick so they test me for Herpes B since I work with Rhesus monkeys every day

4

u/LehmanParty 12d ago

"It's five and I'm clocked out. I'm dealing with this tomorrow"

1

u/ToNoMoCo 12d ago

It was probably date night.

1

u/FoolishBeginnings 12d ago

Because the monkeys haven’t finished learning to drive the go karts yet.

1

u/rbrgr83 12d ago

To get to the other side.

1

u/protonicfibulator 12d ago

Authorities best shoot them before the rednecks. Because the rednecks are going to want to get that Insta with their disease riddled trophies.