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Madeline Krasno

@madelinekrasno

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“obviously a very troubled woman”
📌 former primate lab worker
🐀 executive director of @justify.global

POSTS STORIES REELS

📌 We have an incredible opportunity to expand public reporting of animal experiments and we need your help to make it happen!

Right now, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) does not accurately track how many animals are used in government-funded laboratories. But that could change.

The NIH is seeking public input on a recently-announced plan to accurately count vertebrate animals used in experiments and publicly report that information.

If we don’t track animal numbers, we cannot measure national progress toward replacing animal experiments.

Who isn’t being counted currently? Vertebrates like mice, rats, fish, and birds… the animals who make up at least 95% of the animals used in biomedical research.

Join Justify’s Executive Director, Madeline Krasno, and @physicianscommittee’s Director of Research Advocacy, Ryan Merkley, to learn more about the problem and exactly what you can do to enact a much-needed change.

🔗 Click the events link in our bio to register for the November 17 webinar! by @madelinekrasno

This World Week For Animals In Laboratories, I want to take a moment to reintroduce myself and to name my own intimate and painful connection to the animal research industry.

In college, I became a student caretaker to more than 500 monkeys at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Harlow Primate Lab, believing it would support my dream of working in primate conservation and following in Dr. Jane Goodall’s footsteps.

I wasn’t prepared for the internal conflict or the PTSD I would later be diagnosed with. The ongoing tension of trying to make meaning from my experience while also trying to heal from it.

There’s a perception that I’m healed, or that speaking about this doesn’t affect me anymore. But healing isn’t linear. Just last week, after a three-hour podcast interview, I found myself back in a place of grief and self-loathing.

Reading John Gluck’s Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals, about his own ethical shift in the same lab, was the first time I felt truly seen and not alone.

I started sharing my experience on social media, tagging UW–Madison and commenting on their posts because I believed students and the public deserved to know what happens inside labs like the one I worked in.

UW–Madison, a public institution, began censoring me. With the help of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, I filed a First Amendment lawsuit. Through a FOIA request, we also discovered the university was using keyword filters to block words like “monkey” and “testing,” the language needed to describe what was happening. We uncovered the same practice at the NIH, so we sued them too.

In 2024, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled NIH’s keyword filtering unconstitutional. In 2025, the Seventh Circuit ruled similarly in my case against UW–Madison. Both decisions made something clear: this isn’t just about moderation. It’s about whether the public is allowed to have an honest conversation about animal research at all.

That’s part of why I co-founded @justify.global, because the silencing I ran into publicly reflects something much deeper inside labs.

Cont. in comments ⬇️ by @madelinekrasno

I feel honored, excited, hopeful, and admittedly anxious to share the official launch of a project I hold very close to my heart: Portraits from the Lab: Art & Testimony Confronting the Human and Animal Cost of Experimentation.

The project centers the often-invisible psychological and emotional experiences of people who have worked with animals in research laboratories—people like me.

Through personal reflections, original portraits, artist statements, and participant reactions, it brings visibility to the individuality of the animals and to the relationships, grief, moral conflict, and lasting impact carried by the people who knew and cared for them.

We live in a deeply polarized time, one that encourages us to see difficult issues in black and white and divide people into categories of “good” and “bad.” But if we want to change complex, deeply embedded systems like animal experimentation, we need to understand how people become involved, what they experience inside those systems, why some leave, why others have not or cannot, and what support and pathways make change possible.

One of Justify’s primary goals is to amplify the voices of people with firsthand experience in animal research—not because every person or experience is the same, but because their perspectives are essential to understanding the full cost of this work and building a different future.

I hope you will take some time to sit with these stories and portraits.

Please read them, share the exhibition, and invite others into the conversation with curiosity and compassion: [link in bio]

Thank you so much to the Culture & Animals Foundation and AAVS for making this project possible! 🎨 Similarly, thank you to the courageous storytellers as well as the incredible artists: Dana Ellyn, Hannah Ward, Kat Farrell, Lilia Alfaro, Jane O’Hara, Sally Rumball, Alev Art, Kellie Been, Ufo Reptil, and Danielle Calibird Fernandez. by @madelinekrasno

Some of the hardest barriers inside animal laboratories aren’t the ones made of steel.

In this deeply personal reflection, a former laboratory veterinary technician shares what it was like to care for monkeys confined behind locked doors and cage bars, to witness suffering, and to realize that recognizing a problem didn’t always mean having the power to change it.

From the physical barriers separating workers from animals to the institutional culture that can discourage questioning established practices, this story reveals how difficult it can be to advocate for animals from inside the very systems responsible for their care.

What happens when you’re expected to care for animals, but aren’t always empowered to act on that care?

Read Barriers: The Monkeys That I Cared For and the Wall Between Us, a powerful firsthand account from a member of Justify’s lab worker community.

📌THIS JUST IN link in our bio! by @madelinekrasno

Did you hear the news about a billionaire deciding to back a U.S. breeding facility for 30,000 monkeys? He's quoted saying, "America needs a reliable domestic supply of research primates."

My response on Forbes' Instagram post? "As a former primate lab worker, we absolutely do not. Use that money to fund human-relevant, animal-free methods.

What ensued? A lot of "likes." Also numerous personal attacks by animal rights activists.

I also received this private message and it quite literally made my day. This is the courage I want everyone to have.

The courage to admit when we might be wrong or not know everything.

The courage to realize our own role in harmful systems.

The courage to take steps to do better.

The courage that gives others permission to learn, reflect, and change.

I am not going to stop doing what I do regardless of where the pushback comes from. And I am especially not going to stop doing what I do because I want others to know that there is courage in owning up to what we've done that we aren't proud of.

Above all, there is courage in choosing compassion. by @madelinekrasno

Friendly reminder that mice (and other littles) are worthy of your advocacy, respect, and love. 💕

Also vote. 🗳️

#vote #labanimalrescue #animalresearch #mouse #cuteanimals by @madelinekrasno

Justify is excited to have a table at the San Francisco VegFest for the first time this year!

📚Stop by our table for a chance to win books written by our CEO Lindsay Oliver and Board Member John Gluck!

🎨We will have a few of the pieces from Justify’s online art & storytelling exhibition, Portraits from the Lab, on display in physical form for the first time too.

Let us know if we will see you there! by @madelinekrasno

A Justify community member is sharing firsthand accounts of what really happens inside animal research laboratories through their Substack, Voices From Inside the Lab.

We’re grateful they’re bringing these often-unheard stories to light. 💡

Excerpt:

If you work in a research facility, at some point you become familiar with the four letters that are assigned to the animals: B, C, D, and E.

These letters represent the classification levels used by the facility to report how lab animals’ pain and distress is managed, including whether they are to be given pain-relieving drugs, and if not, why.

On paper, it looks like the categories are there to ensure the animals get the pain relief they need; but the reality is often different.

What do the letters actually mean for the animals?

I spent years working in an animal research facility. I worked in surgery providing anesthesia, assisting with procedures, monitoring animals, and working with the researchers to help minimize pain. I also did daily rounds, checking on animals that animal care technicians flagged as having health problems. I saw some that received medications for pain and anxiety, and unfortunately some others that did not. I saw situations that left me questioning whether an animal’s medical needs were being considered compared to the goals of the experiment.

📌 Substack is linked in Justify’s bio by @madelinekrasno

YOU DID IT!!!! 🥳

As of October 14, Justify had 12 recurring monthly supporters.

On October 15, for my 36th birthday, I asked for *your* help getting us to 36.

Consistent, reliable support ensures we can plan ahead, grow our programs, and create lasting change for humans and animals. Those $5, $10, $50 per month gifts are gold and any nonprofit will tell you this.

I am so incredibly grateful to share that we now have 38 of you committed to giving monthly and one of you committed to an annual gift!!!

And of course, I also want to say how much I appreciate those of you who gave and continue to give whenever the moment feels right. 💕

Thank you to all who are helping Justify build a worker-led movement that supports individuals with firsthand experience in animal research, amplifies their voices, and accelerates the transition toward science without animal or human suffering! 🧪🐒💝

for animals. for people. for science. by @madelinekrasno

Guess who is back on our next FREE town hall!

The amazing humans of @justify.global back to catch us up both personally and what they are doing collectively.

Join us on November 14 to chat with the awesome @madelinekrasno Mallory Cormier @save_the_buns and @lindsoliver

Link to register in bio by @madelinekrasno

Justify is grateful to be presenting at the 13th Annual 3Rs Symposium taking place virtually in November!

Executive Director Madeline Krasno’s presentation, Beyond Compassion Fatigue: Moral Injury, Worker Voices, and the Case for Replacement, will take place on Monday, November 2 from 8:15-8:50 am PST.

🔗 Registration for this *free* symposium can be found in our bio.

About the 3Rs Symposium:

Discover new ideas and approaches for advancing the 3Rs at this 4-day symposium. This year’s theme, Innovative Uses of the 3Rs, will bring together national and international experts to share creative solutions, emerging approaches, and practical examples of replacement, reduction, and refinement in action.

The first three days will feature virtual programming, followed by a fourth day of complementary events, the University of Washington’s 3Rs Symposium and Seattle Cancer Consortium’s NAMs Symposium, with virtual and in-person attendance options.

This symposium is jointly organized by the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Department of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the USDA’s Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC) at the National Agricultural Library, the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, National Institutes of Health, and the University of Washington. by @madelinekrasno

For my 36th birthday, I have a wish: to help Justify reach 36 monthly supporters. 🎂 💓

We currently have 12, which means we need just 24 more people willing to give $5 a month (or whatever amount feels right!).

When I first began speaking publicly about my experiences working in a primate laboratory, I knew how difficult it could be to question a system you were once part of. Speaking out, challenging censorship through lawsuits against UW–Madison and the NIH, and sharing the stories of animals and people affected by research have all been part of my effort to make these conversations possible.

But I’ve never wanted my story to be the exception. I want more people working inside animal laboratories to feel safe questioning what they’ve been taught, sharing what they’ve experienced, and advocating for change.

That’s why Lindsay Oliver, Mallory Cormier, and I created Justify.

We’re building a community where people with firsthand experience in animal research can find support, reflect openly, and use their unique perspectives to help accelerate the transition toward human-relevant, animal-free science.

And we’re working to make sure their voices are heard by the public, scientific institutions, and policymakers who have the power to change things for people, for animals, and for science.

If you’ve ever been moved by my story, inspired by the lawsuits, or grateful that someone was willing to speak openly about what happens behind laboratory doors, I hope you’ll consider helping us make it possible for more people to do the same.

Systemic change won’t come from one person speaking out but from building a movement of people who know this system firsthand and believe we can do better.

Even $5 a month helps give Justify the stability to keep showing up for these individuals, amplifying their voices, and pushing for a future where neither humans nor animals have to suffer in the name of science.

36 years. 36 monthly supporters. 24 more to go. 🙏

Will you help make my birthday wish come true?

You’ll find the link in my and @justify.global’s bio. 💕🥳

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🎨 Art by @reptil_ufo
🐶 Former lab beagle Tiramisu rescued by @kindnessranch by @madelinekrasno