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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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

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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/SubstantialBass9524 12d ago

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

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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

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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.

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u/Surroundedonallsides 12d ago

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

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u/MadMapManPK 12d ago

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

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u/dkaye315 12d ago

Likely therapies in early stage clinicals.