A case filed on Friday in a California state court claims that Neuralink Corp., Elon Musk’s brain-implant business, forced a worker to work with Herpes B-carrying monkeys in an environment where the animals scratched her exposed flesh.
The digital news platforms reveals that after moving to the company’s Fremont, California, location in August 2022, the worker, Lindsay Short, claimed to have found herself in “a work environment fraught with blame, shame, and impossible deadlines.” She claimed that after disclosing her pregnancy to her bosses, she was subsequently let go.
In addition to other claims, Short sued the business alleging gender discrimination, wrongful termination, and retaliation.
An inquiry on Neuralink’s comments regarding the lawsuit was not immediately answered.
Continuing, clinical studies for the startup’s technology, which aims to give paralysed people their function back, are currently underway. Recently, Noland Arbaugh, an Arizona man, became the first human patient to receive the device’s implant through surgery. Arbaugh is quadriplegic, yet he can now play video games with just his mind.
In the past, the business has faced criticism for mistreating monkeys and other animals, including performing clumsy procedures on monkeys kept in the University of California at Davis for research purposes. Since then, it has relocated the monkey studies to its own locations.
She disclosed that the contraction of herpes was through a glove while working with monkeys that were infected with the illness. She claimed that the business had neglected to supply the necessary safety equipment for working with the monkeys. In a different occurrence, a monkey scratched her face after she was made to execute a treatment she wasn’t familiar with. According to the complaint, her supervisor threatened to take “severe repercussions” if she persisted in getting medical attention.
Short claimed in her lawsuit that Neuralink had promised her flexible work hours to accommodate her family, but had instead demotion her in May 2023, two months after her promotion.
After informing Neuralink’s HR department that she was expecting a baby the following month, Short was let go the next day, with the firm citing performance-related reasons as part of litigation.
