An early-life wildfire exposure sickened these monkeys for decades

The experiment started by chance.

In 2008, summer lightning storms sparked a chain of wildfires in the forests of Northern California. For weeks, smoke blanketed the state, drifting all the way to the California National Primate Research Center, where 50 rhesus monkeys had just been born.

“I looked out the window and it looked like the middle of winter here in the Sacramento Valley,” said Lisa Miller, an associate director of research at the center. 

Wildfire smoke...