2012 could be a good year for chimpanzees now that a national report has recommended ending the use of chimps as research subjects.
According to a report published Dec. 15, the National Institutes of Health should prohibit the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research except under stringent circumstances, “including the absence of any other suitable model and inability to ethically perform the research on people,” according to a press release by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, which conducted the study.
“In addition, use of these animals should be permissible only if forgoing their use will prevent or significantly hinder advances necessary to prevent or treat life-threatening or debilitating conditions,” said the committee that wrote the report. “Based on these criteria, chimpanzees are not necessary for most biomedical research.”
The committee based its findings in part on the genetic and behavioral similarities between chimpanzees and humans.
While the chimpanzee has been a valuable animal model in the past, most current biomedical research use of chimpanzees is not necessary, the committee concluded. However, the committee said that it is impossible to predict whether research on emerging or new diseases may necessitate using chimpanzees in the future.
About 1,000 chimpanzees live in research labs in the United States. According to the NIH, the federal government pays approximately $12 million each year to house chimpanzees in the labs.
The primates, which share 98 percent of their genetic blueprint with humans, have been used as test subjects in the U.S. since at least the 1940s. In the 1960s the Air Force and NASA sent chimpanzees into space before astronaut missions. In recent decades, scientists have used the genetic similarities between chimpanzees and humans to study infectious diseases.
Earlier this year, the NIH, which monitors research labs for compliance with animal welfare laws, requested that the IOM study whether chimpanzees are necessary for medical research.
Scientists who testified at a hearing for the IOM disagreed over the issue.
John VandeBerg, director of the Southwest National Primate Research Center, wrote in 2005 for the science journal Nature: “6.3 billion people in the world today will depend on the small number of chimpanzees available for research for some of the most dramatic medical advances of the future.” In the article, he emphasizes the role chimpanzees played in the development of a hepatitis B vaccine and how they have helped scientists gain a better understanding of malaria and HIV.
Brian Hare, assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, countered that, at the very least, most scientific research could be conducted at sanctuaries rather than NIH labs. “There’s tremendous potential,” he said, explaining that it would be cheaper, support conservation and prevent many chimpanzees from languishing in cages.
Advocates for the primates contend that the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research is harmful and unethical.
“It’s not too different from torture,” Jane Goodall said in a speech to the NIH earlier this year. Advocates argue that keeping chimpanzees isolated in small cages defies their nature as social animals and is emotionally traumatizing. Many chimpanzees spend their entire lives isolated in cages. In captivity, such as in zoos, chimpanzees live to be about 60. In the wild, chimpanzees have an average life expectancy of 45.
Chimpanzees in research labs may die at younger ages because they are frequently infected with the disease being studiedsuch as HIV or hepatitis.
Congress is reviewing the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, which would permanently retire federally owned chimpanzees to sanctuaries and prohibit their use in invasive researchdefined as any testing that is detrimental to the chimpanzee’s health or psychological well-being.
Advocates for chimpanzee rights agree that chimpanzees were important to research in the past, but they point to advances in medical technology that have created alternative methods that should be funded and explored. The United States and Gabon, a small country in Africa, are the only countries in the world that continue to use chimpanzees for invasive research. And one major pharmaceutical company in the U.S. has voluntarily prohibited using chimpanzees in its research, including studies on hepatitis C.
Advocacy groups, including the Jane Goodall Institute and the Humane Society of the United States, have also pressured the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FSW) to help strengthen chimpanzee welfare laws. Currently, wild chimpanzees are classified as “endangered” by the FSW under the Endangered Species Act. But medical research on chimpanzees can take place in the U.S. because chimpanzees in captivity are labeled as “threatened,” a category that offers less protection.
Chimpanzees are the only species with a split classification. The FSW is considering elevating the status of captive chimpanzees as “endangered,” which could place more restrictions on private ownership and their use in medical research.
No chimpanzees are being used in research labs in North Carolina, but it is one of the few states that doesn’t restrict the sale of chimps as exotic petsanother challenge to protecting the species, according to activists.
Many people who buy baby chimpanzees to keep for a pet are unable to take care of them as they grow older and more aggressive.
The Captive Primate Safety Act, introduced in Congress in July, would address this problem by prohibiting interstate commerce of chimpanzees.
A version of this story was originally published on our Triangulator news blog.
