Injections Providing Protection Against AIDS in Monkeys, Studies Find. Most monkeys don’t go clubbing

The New York Times reported studies found that Injections Provided Protection Against AIDS in Monkeys. But many variables, including monkey reluctance to go clubbing, complicate the research, said Marquel, TPVs Times AIDS correspondent.

Scientific research is difficult when variables can be controlled but when they can’t, it tends to fall apart. Marquel was told about the problem by an alert lab assistant who said these monkeys were not just your random primates.

Marquel visited the lab and observed the monkeys. While it was true, apparently, that they were uninfected by AIDS, a brief inspection indicated that most of these monkeys were straight. And even fewer fooled around much. But unable to interview the monkeys directly, Marquel hit the proverbial dead end. He asked around the lab but nobody seemed to know anybody useful until a telephone rang. Marquel’s telephone.

The call, from Jane Goodall, made Marquel aware of Goodall’s French cousin, Jeanne. Jeanne’s English isn’t that good but she shares her cousin’s facility of talking to monkeys in their own language. At least that was her claim.

I sat down with Jeanne, who was both attractive and French, and with a monkey from the experiment. “Should I congratulate him?” Asked Jeanne.

“For what” I asked.

“Why for not getting AIDS, of course,” she answered.

I didn’t see why not, so I said, “sure, and while you’re at it ask him whether he was afraid of getting AIDS ”

“He says,” she said, “that he wasn’t at all afraid because he takes precautions.”

“What kind of precautions?” I asked.

“He says he uses condoms and when he can’t, he only engages in oral sex,” she repeated.

“What!” I shouted. “Don’t tell me he uses condoms or even knows how to use it. That’s ridiculous. And so is the rest of what you said. Where did you learn to talk to monkeys anyway?”

“In zee jongle avec my cousine” she explained.

“Okay, tell him you want him to put on a condom and show me.”

She hesitated and said, “you will have to leave the room,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Zats what he wants.” She said.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s go.”

“Not me,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“He vants me to stay,” she said.

“This is ridiculous” I protested. But I left. When I returned, indeed the condom was on. “Did you put that on him?” I asked her.

“Please, Marquel, a Frenchwoman does not do zat sort of thing,” she said fluttering her eyes.

“Then what did you do?” I asked.

“I…encouraged him….” She answered.

Believing little of what I heard I nevertheless asked her to find out how often he does this, with whom, and when not.

“He says he uses it whenever he makes the love with a woman monkey, and I think with a man monkey too but he refused to discuss that.”

“Ask him if he has friends who aren’t so careful.” I requested.

“Oh yes,” she said he said. “He says all sorts of monkeyshines go on in here when the lights go out.” She made a gesture but I didn’t catch it. “Zey fuck like monkeys, eez how you say?”

“So the shots work,” I said. “They don’t have AIDS, right?

“But zat is because zey all practice safe monkey sex, he says,” she said.

“Exactly what does that mean?” I asked.

She conferred with the little primate wearing the condom and then said, “Zey use condoms when having sex, including anal sex and zee dental dam for oral sex. Right Marcel?” The monkey shook his head

“That’s his name?” I asked.

“Zat eez quite a coincidence, n’est ce pas?”

“Tell you what,” I said, “Tell Marcel that Marquel wants to see the monkeys practice safe sex.”

“I will ask heem, but I know he is shy” she said, waving her hand towards the cages. “een front of zee girls, you know.” She again conferred with Marcel and finally told me, “He wants to know if you are some kind of pervert. Would you have sex in front of heem?”

“Well, that depends on the monkey I guess,” I answered. “This is not the interview I expected. It’s a lot to absorb. I don’t understand how these monkeys learned about condoms, dental dams, and such.”

“By watching,” she said.

“Watching whom?” I asked.

She seemed to talk to the animal and said, “zee lab assistants. Zey like to do it when zee monkeys watch. And eet makes zee monkeys very hot. I find eet very cruel.”

“So you’re saying the experiment is useless because we don’t know if it’s the safe monkey sex or the injections?”

“I guess zat is true,” she said as she walked down the row of cages, letting her fingers slide from bar to bar. Suddenly she shouted, “Jail break!” and, running the length of the room, unlocked all the cages. I suddenly knew what a barrel of monkeys meant. Hundreds of monkeys flooded the room. I spotted Marcel as he ran by wearing his oversized condom.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making them free. Monkeys should be free. All animals should be free,” she said without an accent.

“But what are you going to do now? They can’t survive free. They can’t really talk and you’re not Jane Goodall’s cousin. You’re PETA!” I accused her.

“We should not be using animals for research,” she said.

“But this is how we find cures,” I answered.

“No, ” she said, “you can use computers, in vitro experiments and insensate animals if necessary.”

“But that doesn’t always work,” I said, “just this week they announced a bacterial genome that cures diabetes. But in lower animals it actually creates diabetes! The scientists have to use the animal that most closely replicates our system,” I blustered.

“The closest is us,”she said.

“Let me get this straight. You want to experiment with humans,” I asked.

“Not animals,” she said.

“Sooo,” I ventured, “if there are monkey diseases, who should they experiment on?”

She was stuck. “I don’t know.”

“How about we take one out of every hundred babies born and put them here and use them like monkeys to search for monkey cures and we take some monkeys and use them for human cures. Would that work?” I asked.

“No, I’d feel bad for the monkeys.”

“Not the babies?” I asked. She was silent.

I did my best to stuff the monkeys back in their cages. I got ready to leave. “Coming?” I asked.

“No I’m staying with Marcel,” she said, crawling into his cage while adjusting his condom. Marcel chirped.

Outside the lab door, I called my lab assistant friend. “I’m all done,” I told him. “But don’t be surprised if when you return you’ve got one more monkey in the cages.”

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You may follow Marquel on Twitter @MarquelatTPV.