Jun 20, 2026 · 33 min · 7 segments
Remember when three baboons escaped from a Sydney hospital back in 2020, where did they come from? Steve delves into the secretive animal testing facility and makes us think about whether it's still…
Lizzie PearlHost
Steve MarshallHost
Erin RamseyNo entities detected.
Yeah, so hence going west, there's a secret government facility out there which is home to a national colony of baboons, and they're bred solely for medical research.
Now, the story isn't about... you know, why we're using baboons for medical research and it hasn't worked because there is evidence that they are responsible for medical breakthroughs, which obviously help us live longer.
I mean, you don't want to go to the doctor and be told that there's no cure for you, right? But, and it's a big but, the facility's been around since the 1980s.
The other argument is, given the advancement of technology in modern science, is it time that we phase out medical testing using these baboons in favour of more modern techniques? And there's a huge argument for and against for that.
So, yeah, it started off with a trip to the facility to see what we could find.
So, I mean, I think we've, I knew about this facility for a number of years, but it is, it's very secretive.
It's sort of surrounded by fences and trees and you can't really see much from the road.
So how do you go about doing a story on something which is sort of behind lock and key?
Well, you can't do anything like this without information from people who are intimate with the situation.
So our story was based around a whistleblower, a former animal technician who had worked there.
in a park in Sydney, and she brought evidence that she worked there and photographs of her tending to baboons in the facility.
And she filled me in on what goes on in there, more so about the care for the baboons and what their colony is like when they come to being tested and being taken away.
They're the closest things to humans and you can understand if they're bred for this research and they're back and forth from hospitals, they understand what's going on.
So his name's Wilfred.
Yeah, and he was hand-raised by a number of people that worked at the facility.
Yeah, so hence going west, there's a secret government facility out there which is home to a national colony of baboons, and they're bred solely for medical research.
Now, the story isn't about... you know, why we're using baboons for medical research and it hasn't worked because there is evidence that they are responsible for medical breakthroughs, which obviously help us live longer.
I mean, you don't want to go to the doctor and be told that there's no cure for you, right? But, and it's a big but, the facility's been around since the 1980s.
The other argument is, given the advancement of technology in modern science, is it time that we phase out medical testing using these baboons in favour of more modern techniques? And there's a huge argument for and against for that.
So, yeah, it started off with a trip to the facility to see what we could find.
So, I mean, I think we've, I knew about this facility for a number of years, but it is, it's very secretive.
It's sort of surrounded by fences and trees and you can't really see much from the road.
So how do you go about doing a story on something which is sort of behind lock and key?
Well, you can't do anything like this without information from people who are intimate with the situation.
So our story was based around a whistleblower, a former animal technician who had worked there.
in a park in Sydney, and she brought evidence that she worked there and photographs of her tending to baboons in the facility.
And she filled me in on what goes on in there, more so about the care for the baboons and what their colony is like when they come to being tested and being taken away.
They're the closest things to humans and you can understand if they're bred for this research and they're back and forth from hospitals, they understand what's going on.
So his name's Wilfred.
Yeah, and he was hand-raised by a number of people that worked at the facility.
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