Report: Harmful Chimpanzee Research Not Worth the Pain

• By Brandon Keim

Update 2 p.m. ET: 90 minutes after the IOM report’s public release, NIH director Francis Collins announced that “I have considered the report carefully and have decided to accept the IOM committee recommendations.” The report recommended the NIH establish an independent oversight committee to evaluate each study, limiting biomedical experiments only to what is absolutely necessary and ensuring that all research is ethically conducted. No new research funding will be granted until the recommendations are in place.
Human ingenuity and compassion have prevailed in an Institute of Medicine declaration that invasive medical experiments on chimpanzees are largely unnecessary.
Though the report’s suggestions are not legally binding, the Institute is widely respected. Its judgments often shape government and academic policy. According to the report, experiments that inflict physical and mental harm to humanity’s closest living relatives are justified only when absolutely indispensable, and when no other alternatives exist.
Thanks to improvements in drug design, research techniques and experimental methods, alternatives do exist. Of 436 federally owned research chimps and 501 kept in private laboratories, only a few might be considered important to medical progress — and perhaps not for long.
“While the chimpanzee has been a valuable animal model in past research, most current use of chimpanzees for biomedical research is unnecessary,” conclude the 12 members of the Committee on The Use of Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research. They describe a “decreasing need for chimpanzee studies due to the emergence of non-chimpanzee models and technologies.”
Said John Pippin of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an animal advocacy group, “the IOM report paves the way for the end of invasive chimpanzee research in the United States.”

Read More:

NIH Accused of Dishonesty Over Chimp Research Plans

Hep C: The Last Chimpanzee Research Battleground

A Second Life for Retired Lab Chimps

Leading U.S. Lab Accused of Illegal Chimp Breeding

The report, commissioned in January after the National Institutes of Health tried to return 209 retired chimpanzees to research duty, is based on almost seven months of deliberation, including reviews of hundreds of studies and testimony from dozens of experts.
Housed at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico, the chimps had been rescued in 2001 from the Coulston Foundation, a private laboratory infamous for cruelty and negligence to animals. Many had lived for decades in captivity, subjected to forced infections and surgeries, separated from families, and held in isolation. Now, after earning the closest thing to freedom they’d ever get, they’d be sent back.
Medical research on chimps has long been opposed by animal advocates, but the Alamogordo colony’s plight also resonated in the consciences of non-activist citizens and many scientists. Faced with public outrage and Congressional pressure, the NIH agreed to postpone the move until an Institute of Medicine committee evaluated chimpanzee research, which hadn’t been nationally debated since the early 1990s, when chimps were thought important for insights into HIV.
Much had changed since, including our fundamental understanding of chimps. Cognitive and behavioral research formally described deep capacities for thought and feeling: Chimps experience happiness and grief, are both self-aware and empathic, and have culture and the rudiments of morality. On the spectrum of personhood, they’re not far from people.
In the medical world, scientists discouraged by the practical, financial and ethical challenges of chimp testing found ways to avoid it. Several pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, renounced experimentation on chimps and other great apes. Only hepatitis C — a virus that, apart from infecting humans, only infects chimps — remained a highly active area of chimpanzee medical experimentation. Subjecting them to procedures that would traumatize people, and do traumatize chimps, no longer seemed essential for medical progress.
Some researchers, especially those who already experimented with chimpanzees and studied hepatitis C, still argued that chimps were necessary. But they didn’t convince the Institute of Medicine’s committee.

Pages: 1 2 View All

• Previously
• You Might Like
• Related Links by Contextly

• Hepatitis C: The Last Chimpanzee Research Battleground
• A Second Life for Retired Lab Chimps
• NIH Accused of Dishonesty Over Chimp Research Plans
• Leading U.S. Primate Lab Accused Of Illegal Chimp Breeding
• Chimps: Not Human, But Are They People?

Show More

Whale And Dolphin Meat In Taiji

Whale (whale meat) is to table直送still fresh whale meat from Taiji healthy low-calorie ★ ● ● High-protein low-fat ●!
City of everlasting spring whales Taiji town, the town has flowers all year round. Deliver flowers photos and pictures of the sea from such Taiji. Whales from the town of Taiji, we sent directly to the table of everybody whale meat directly managed super Taiji fishery. Whale meat The body-friendly, healthy meat and low-calorie triple threat ● ● High-protein low-fat ●. The whale meat to deliver to everyone, the whale was caught in the Antarctic Ocean scientific whaling, whale meat will deliver a clear criterion Welfare. Please make sure miss the taste of whale meat has been traditionally eaten as a traditional Japanese food culture.		Click to enlarge In Taiji for culture and protection of whales and other food have been told many years, the whale catch quotas in the fishing and the government decided on the basis of the whale resources survey of the coast outside the jurisdiction of the IWC has taken. There are various ways of eating, and sashimi manager is to recommend what to say. Whale meat and skin (fat part), sliced, and combined our sashimi was excellent! Whale sashimi (sashimi), which is a staple of our ginger soy sauce, and local Kumano, It smells faintly of citrus fruit, and even how you folded in ponzu citrus fruit. "The meat is very cut?" Those who believe, Do not worry, like state and by 1.2 hours and half-understood it from the freezer, and easily cut with a knife than this time, good It can be sliced ​​into. Japanese have eaten whale since the dawn of time! Which after the war, Japan has covered the kitchen as a significant source of protein. After whaling regulation, which became a valuable product, Taiji Fishery Cooperative has been providing whale meat this week. Low calorie and low fat! And delicious! The whale meat is a triple threat, without worrying about the calories, eat beautiful food! The current diet of high fat high calorie, balanced diet with meat and fish, such as Cohen Nostalgic ●, roller whales back into the pot with water and Oden ● The skin over the water, then silver skin from the Haida, sliced ● The whale bacon, and fried rice with chopped fillings
Whale meat not know on purchases ●, including FAQ and order flow Contact us by email, please do not hesitate feel free contact us at here. Manager and staff will answer. ● fishery in Taiji whale meat has been providing peace of mind.
Since the IWC moratorium on commercial whaling ● 1982 (Pause) adopted at once interrupted by recent commercial whaling by Japan in March 1988 has just became less valuable opportunity to eat whales. In particular, in Taiji, such as for food and other cultural protection have been told many years, among seasons and catch quotas determined on the basis of a pilot study of government resources outside the jurisdiction of the IWC in the coastal has taken. Taiji is a super fishery has been mail-order sales and Taiji whale was landed by fishing this way. Moreover, since we have also introduced with the whale recipe, please use.
■ Text Menu Review of Taichi Super Fishery Whale for sale listings A good way to extract the whale meat Taiji Fishery Home View other law relating to the Store News from Taiji Fishery Cooperative Taiji Fishery Cooperative Links Taiji landscape

Rare Chinese white dolphin gets DNA bank

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gww4Q11aZAfvsu4BNc9psuMbhZFQ?docId=CNG.b55e62b1849467d932ccf3eb6b36cb49.d1

The Chinese white dolphin are listed as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (AFP/File, Daniel Sorabji)