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Approximately 70,000 primates live in hundreds of laboratories throughout the United States. ©iStock.com |
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The assertion that chimpanzees have no place in biomedical research got a boost following the circulation of several publications on the subject of primate research.
Evidence Rebuts Editorial
In reaction to an editorial in the journal Nature Medicine that advocated the widespread use of non-human primates for experimentation, several animal protection organizations co-authored a letter to the editor that used scientific evidence to rebut the editorial's claims.
The New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS), The Humane Society of the United States, and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) contributed to the letter, which cites evidence of the failures of chimpanzee use in research, addresses humane and ethical issues and promotes the use of scientifically superior alternatives.
The letter was published in the October 2008 (volume 14, number 10) edition of the journal in response to the editorial, "When Less is Not More", published in the August 2008 (volume 14, number 8) edition of Nature Medicine.
Primates are Poor Models
In October, the journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals (ATLA) published a paper entitled An Assessment of the Role of Chimpanzees in AIDS Vaccine Research, which found that although chimpanzees were used in HIV research for several decades, none of the vaccines that protected chimpanzees and other primates from HIV infection were successful in humans.
The paper's author, geneticist Jarrod Bailey, Ph.D, science director for Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in US Laboratories, concluded that "claims of the importance of chimpanzee research for human health are misleading and a call to return to their use is without scientific justification."
Animals on Political Agenda
An expert report analyzing the use of primates in research, including chimpanzees, is being delivered to EU and UK politicians and other stakeholders to ensure that replacing primates and other animals with non-animal alternatives in experiments is high on the political agenda.
Replacing Primates in Medical Research was authored by members of the UK-based Focus on Alternatives (FoA) and explores in detail the extent to which primate experiments have been replaced by non-animal alternatives and how scientific progress in alternatives have the potential to replace primates in medical research.
Members of FoA that contributed to the report include the non-profit organizations Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME) and St Andrew Animal Fund.
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The U.S. is the only country that continues the large-scale use of chimpanzees for invasive research and testing. ©iStock.com |
U.S. Lags Behind
More than 1,000 chimpanzees—some who were captured from the wild, used by the entertainment industry and kept as pets—currently live in nine biomedical research and testing laboratories around the United States.
Despite extensive knowledge of their rich social and emotional lives and their ineffectiveness as models for human diseases like HIV, chimpanzees continue to be subjected to painful and invasive experiments. However, the majority of chimpanzees in laboratories are not currently used in research and are simply languishing in their cages.
The U.S. is the only country that continues the large-scale use of chimpanzees for invasive research and testing. New Zealand, United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the Netherlands already forbid or severely limit experiments on great apes.
