United Airlines bans shipping primates to laboratories - DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG

Following a vigorous yearlong PETA campaign that included public protests and more than 100,000 e-mails and social-media messages, United Airlines told PETA Monday that it has banned the transport of primates to laboratories.

The new policy reads, "We do not book, accept or transport primates to or from medical research facilities."

Because Air Canada is in the process of implementing a similar ban, PETA's United victory means that not a single major airline based in North America will deliver monkeys to laboratories, where they are caged, poisoned, addicted to drugs, mutilated, and killed.

"It will be much harder for cruel experimenters to get their hands on monkeys to abuse now that United has joined every other commercial airline in North America in refusing to deliver primates to certain suffering and death in laboratories," says PETA Senior Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "PETA will continue to pressure the few overseas airlines—now numbering only four—that continue this inhumane practice."

PETA's United campaign began in 2011, when the airline—which had previously banned shipping primates for experiments—began to finalize its merger with Continental Airlines and adopted Continental's cargo policies, which allowed for the practice.

United received more than 130,000 protest e-mails from PETA supporters, and thousands of dedicated activists flooded United's Facebook wall with messages and photos of primates locked in laboratories. PETA demonstrated against the airline at its offices around the world, including its Chicago headquarters, and purchased stock in the company with the intention of introducing a shareholder resolution later this year.

Air France, China Eastern Airlines, Philippine Airlines, and Vietnam Airlines are the only remaining major airlines that transport primates destined for experiments.