Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Lisa Jones-Engel, Ph.D

Safer Human Medicine (SHM) didn’t make a proud announcement about acquiring a primate facility in LaBelle, Florida—it got caught. PETA exposed SHM’s secret takeover of the site, forcing the company to admit it had quietly formed another company, SIMI United States LLC, to attempt to do in Florida what it had been prevented from doing in Bainbridge. This isn’t just another business transaction. It’s a continuation of SHM’s exploitation of a dangerous and deeply flawed system that profits from secrecy and suffering. And the public deserves to know the full story. 

For months, SHM’s proposed primate facility in Bainbridge has stalled. Now, instead of pushing forward in Georgia, SHM is quietly shifting to Florida, buying up land around its newly acquired site. While the company claims this is just a step toward building in Bainbridge, the facts suggest otherwise: SHM is 18 months behind schedule, entangled in legal battles, and facing an industry in decline. Rather than confronting these obstacles, it appears to be making a run for Florida, hoping no one will notice.

When SHM pitched its Bainbridge project behind closed doors, it argued the primate research industry needed more monkeys. But since then, the industry has been collapsing. U.S. monkey imports have dropped 35%, exposing an unstable market. The Sandy River Research report further highlighted the illicit and disease-ridden global primate trade, while wild populations in Asia are crashing. Meanwhile, funding for monkey-based research is under increasing scrutiny, and trained personnel are in short supply. SHM isn’t expanding because business is booming—it’s scrambling to salvage a failing enterprise.

Bainbridge residents should be relieved that SHM’s focus appears to be shifting. Its plan to warehouse thousands of monkeys raised serious concerns about public health, environmental risks, and ethics. But the fight isn’t over. SHM still owns land in Bainbridge, still claims to have long-term plans, and still refuses to be transparent. If the primate import market is collapsing and resources are dwindling, how does SHM justify expanding anywhere? If Florida is just a temporary fix, what happens when it fails? Does Bainbridge get left with an abandoned project? Or worse, does SHM try to force its way back in?

Bainbridge residents and local media must demand real answers. If SHM had a viable plan, it wouldn’t be scrambling from state to state in search of a lifeline. Until it can explain exactly what it’s doing, why, and how it plans to sustain itself, Bainbridge should remain deeply skeptical of anything it promises.