Elon Musk-owned Neuralink confirms monkeys died during tests but rejects abuse claim

Elon Musk's brain-chip firm Neuralink has admitted monkeys died during tests, but denied claims of animal abuse put forward by an animal rights group. The biotech firm is developing a brain-computer interface, that it claims could one day make humans hyper-intelligent, and allow paralyzed people to walk again. Last week the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) lodged a complaint with the US Department of Agriculture, alleging several counts of animal abuse between 2017 and 2020, involving test monkeys owned by Neuralink. They claimed the macaque monkeys, housed at a University of California Davis research facility, were subject to experiments that amounted to torture, with evidence of rashes, self-mutilation and brain hemorrhages seen in documentation. Neuralink has hit back at the claims of abuse, calling out the PCRM as a group that oppose any use of animals in research.