Research Animals: Federal Costs for Care of the Silver Spring Monkeys

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information regarding a group of monkeys in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research program, specifically: (1) care, transportation, litigation, and public relations costs after local police removed the monkeys from a private research firm and transferred them to NIH; (2) arrangements for reimbursement from the firm; (3) whether a proposal to build a new facility for the monkeys involved federal funds; and (4) whether the Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspected the grantee's facility prior to the monkeys' removal.