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Call for Action:  Help Chimps Used in Research Labs

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U.S. and Canadian Primetime TV Weigh in on Chimpanzee Debate

While laboratory directors believe that using chimpanzees for medical research sparks hope for cures for diseases that plague humans, we and many scientists worldwide know that’s not true. Chimpanzee research is inhumane, not productive, unnecessary and a waste of money. Two major primetime news programs recently presented both sides of the debate. Both of these programs are a must see!

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Chimpanzee Life in a U.S. Lab: Fact or Fiction

In a news story that aired Monday night (1/31) on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams, “Ken & Rosie: When should lab chimpanzees be retired,” reporter Lisa Myers went inside the Texas Biomedical Research Institute (the host institution for the Southwest National Primate Research Center [SNPRC]) to see for herself what life is like for chimpanzees in research. With the cameras rolling, the lab tried to paint a not-so-bad and even a “high quality of life” picture of the chimps’ laboratory world. But the realities are very different.

In the program, among the many shocking comments made in support of the use of chimpanzees in research and in denial of their suffering was that of Dr. John L. VandeBerg, Director of SNPRC: ”When you talk about invasive research, I don’t think these actions [taking blood samples, giving injections or pills] have any effect whatsoever on chimpanzees psychologically.” Yet, in the footage we see chimpanzees rocking in cages, frantic, with sparse hair from self-mutilation, stress or poor health, and other visible signs telling us that these actions do have a drastic effect on them.

Dr. Jane Goodall, primatologist and anthropologist, emphasized, “All invasive research is torture…and it’s not just the procedures. It’s the imprisonment. It’s being kept in a small space with no choice. You [the chimpanzees] just are there. You’re powerless.”

Dr. Linda Brent, a behavioral primatologist who initiated and directed the environmental enhancement program to over 6,000 primates at the Southwest Foundation for 16 years, left to start Chimp Haven, the national sanctuary funded in large part by the government. Dr. Brent notes that even after years of being at Chimp Haven, some chimps still exhibit symptoms of stress from their time in the labs.

Scientists at SNPRC argue that they provide chimpanzees a quality of life that is just as good as a sanctuary. Dr. Goodall disagrees… “About sanctuary, everything revolves around the welfare of the chimpanzees. That’s a very different mission than a research laboratory whose mission is to do research.”

And, as Dr. VandeBerg summarized, “Chimpanzees do not have a choice to participate in medical research and pigs do not have a choice to participate in the grinding up of sausage.These are animals … used by humans for the welfare of humans…chimpanzees are not people…they are chimpanzees.” With attitudes like this, it is no surprise that as the cameras leave the facility, so too does the purported “quality” of care.

If you missed the program, watch it at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/46198400#46198400

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Chimpanzee Life in Sanctuary vs. Life in a Lab

In another news story that aired Saturday night (1/28) on W5 Canadian TV, “Emotional debate over use of chimpanzees for medical research,” viewers got an inside look at chimpanzee life in a lab versus life in sanctuary. The story focused on the scientific question of whether chimpanzees are necessary for biomedical research for humans as well as on how chimpanzees rescued and in sanctuary still suffer from lab use, procedures and trauma.

The show aired footage of HSUS undercover investigation of the New Iberia Research Center (NIRC). It showed research assistants sedating or “knocking down” a chimpanzee with a dart gun and allowing him to fall hard onto the concrete floor and the rough handling of chimpanzees and monkeys when intubated or during other procedures. The footage created a public relations nightmare for NIRC. Thomas Rowell, NIRC Director said only that, “There were five minutes or less of video where you said to yourself, you know, I wish so and so hadn’t said this…Or I wish they’d have been more careful here.” Rowell’s response sorely lacked concern for the chimpanzees or monkeys. Rowell added, “The procedures that were shown on that tape are no more traumatic or no more invasive than what all primates experience when they’re enlisted into research protocols.”

The program included a moving interview with Gloria Grow, Founder and Director of the Fauna Foundation sanctuary whose rescue of chimpanzees from a U.S. lab makes it the first and only chimpanzee sanctuary in Canada.  She introduces us to Fauna chimps rescued 15 years ago from research. Even in sanctuary, it is clear that chimpanzees from research still have a struggle ahead of them. Gloria stated, “Fauna was the first sanctuary in the world to rescue HIV-positive chimpanzees. And the three [of the HIV-positive chimps] that are left here at Fauna look pretty good on the outside, but we know on the inside, they’re totally destroyed.”

Gloria then gets to the heart of the matter by adding, “…For a chimpanzee, [sanctuary is] a comfortable world… one that … offers them the affection and respect from human beings they often lacked in research facilities.”

If you missed the program, watch it at: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/20120127/w5-debate-over-chimpanzees-for-medical-research-120128/

Please send your feedback to the stations and let them know that you want all chimpanzee research to end now!

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Chimpanzees DO Suffer Psychologically

Years of investigation by NEAVS/Project R&R provide scientific documentation of the enormous psychological toll taken on chimpanzees from not only research use but also from confinement and routine laboratory procedures. Read our science papers.

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Chimpanzee Use is NOT Necessary

Read our science papers that document that the use of chimpanzees for research on hepatitis, HIV and other diseases are neither effective nor necessary for human health and learn more about the alternatives that are better and more humane science.

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TAKE ACTION, PLEASE!

What You Can Do to Help Chimpanzees and Humans

Please continue to ask your federal legislators to support the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, H.R.1513/S.810.

Log a call and sign our automated letter. Help us pass this critical and historic legislation that will end the use of chimpanzees in invasive research and retire all federally-owned chimpanzees to sanctuary.

In this 112th Congress, 155 House Cosponsors and 14 Senate Cosponsors currently support the bill!

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Source: Project R&R is a campaign of the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS)
333 Washington Street, Suite 850, Boston, MA 02108

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