Following a series of protests, Dr. Laurie Glimcher, the Dean of Weill-Cornell Medical College, resigned from the board of the NY Blood Center (NYBC), the organization under fire for leaving dozens of research chimpanzees to die of starvation in Liberia and Ivory Coast after experimenting on them for 30 years.

Dr. Glimcher’s attempt to walk away from the scandal by relinquishing her position on the board neither absolves her of responsibility for the decision to abandon the chimps nor does anything to help the chimps whose lives hang in the balance with no permanent funding in place for their care.

The NYBC by-laws assign responsibility for the management of its affairs to the Board of Trustees. When asked about the abandoned chimps during her tenure on the board, Dr. Glimcher confirmed her support for NYBC's actions when she referred a reporter with the Herald-Times to the NYBC website, which attempts to justify NYBC's actions. Furthermore, after resigning from the NYBC board, Dr. Glimcher had the opportunity to publicly demand that the organization fulfill its promise to provide care for the chimpanzees. Instead, she remained silent, further demonstrating her tacit endorsement for abandoning the chimps.

A reputable institution like Weill-Cornell Medicine compromises its integrity by having as its leader a physician capable of committing the moral crime of abandoning sick and helpless animals, leaving them to die a slow and painful death by starvation.

We ask Dr. Glimcher to issue a public statement calling on NYBC to reinstate funding for the chimps in Liberia and Ivory Coast. If Dr. Glimcher acts, this petition will be withdrawn. Until such time, we call on Weill-Cornell Medical College to take a stand for ethical conduct, compassion, and integrity by discharging Laurie Glimcher as its dean.