Stop monkeying around.

That's the message a group of doctors, nurses and other health care workers has for NASA.

The group is reportedly trying to convince the space administration to cancel plans to do radiation experiments on squirrel monkeys.

"Nobody knows what the effects on these monkeys is going to be," said Dr. John Pippin of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, in an interview with Florida Today. "There could be horrible side-effects, for all we know."

The committee has reportedly delivered a petition to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, asking him to cancel the experiment.

According to reporter Jim Waymer, NASA plans to zap 27 adult male squirrel monkeys with gamma rays at a laboratory near New York City, to see how the monkeys react, physically and mentally.

Gamma rays are described by experts as a "highly penetrating" form of radiation.

NASA says it wants to conduct the experiment in order to see how the gamma rays in space might affect humans on very long space flights - a 3-year mission to Mars, for example.

A NASA spokesperson says squirrel monkeys are perfect for such testing because they're easily trained and genetically similar to humans.

But according to Florida Today, NASA has not done any experiments involving monkeys since the 1970s.

And the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is calling the current plans "one giant leap backward."

"I can't imagine why this was ever approved by NASA," Dr. Pippin told the newspaper.

According to Waymer's report, NASA spokesperson Ashley Edwards admitted the experiment would "cause some cellular damage" to the monkeys.

"(But) it's not enough to kill these monkeys," she said. "We want them to live a long time so we can watch their behavior."

Edwards also told Florida Today the experiments could lead to new discoveries about cancer - discoveries that might benefit humans who are suffering from the disease.

But all that doesn't satisfy Dr. Pippin and his fellow physicians.

"This looks like total nonsense to me," he told Waymer.

What do you think?