They are sickening. I read about them in the book "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals" by Karen Dawn [which I highly suggest you all read, it's an excellent book].
Baby monkeys are taken from their mothers, locked up alone in "devices that would have trapped a Houdini" (Harry Harlow) and then kept there for months. It sometimes takes two lab workers to hold the struggling mother monkey down while a third pulls her baby away. These studies cause the babies to be permanently psychologically damaged, and in many cases, when they are placed with other monkeys, they sit staring through the bars as if they are alone. In one specific experiment monkeys were isolated for 2 years and "mentally destroyed." No amount of company, stroking, or any interaction could even get them to lift their heads. He found that the babies would cling to stuffed surrogate mothers placed in their cages, and that even when those surrogates blasted the babies with air, or stabbed the infants with spikes, they still clung to them. He then later found that if he inseminated those abused monkeys, they tortured their own babies, in some cases slamming them against or walls or chewing off their fingers.
"The only thing I care about is whether or not the monkeys will turn out a property I can publish. I don't have any love for them. Never have. I don't really like animals. I despise cats. I hate dogs. How could you like monkeys?"
-Harry Harlow
Harry Harlow spent millions, disposed of a great number of monkeys, and pyschologically damaged those who weren't disposed of to tell us something we already know; separation from mothers have a serious impact on young. These studies are not only cruel beyond words or belief, but they are also unnecessary.
-All facts and quotes taken from "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals" by Karen Dawn.
