E-Letter responses to:

n-focus: Jon Cohen BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH: The Endangered Lab Chimp Science 2007; 315: 450-452 [Summary] [Full text] [PDF]

E-Letters: Submit a response to this article

Published E-Letter responses:

Providing an Ideal Habitat for Research Chimpanzees

Richard G. Rawlins   (13 March 2007)

Time to End Research on Chimpanzees

Theodora Capaldo, Jarrod Bailey   (13 March 2007)

Providing an Ideal Habitat for Research Chimpanzees 13 March 2007
Richard G. Rawlins Rush University Medical Center Respond to this E-Letter: Re: Providing an Ideal Habitat for Research Chimpanzees	If the objective for NIH and its associated intramural and extramural investigators is to maintain a population of chimpanzees as a reserve for future/as yet undefined research (“The endangered lab chimp,” J. Cohen, News Focus, 26 Jan., p. 450), it should do so by providing an ideal habitat for them instead of cages and corrals. The NIH’s National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) should look at its own past success in Puerto Rico. C. R. Carpenter founded the Cayo Santiago colony of free ranging rhesus macaques there in 1938 to supply the biomedical research needs of the United States (1). This eliminated trapping animals in hostile countries and dealing with embargoes on animal shipments and ensured the robust health of the animals. The colony was founded by the Columbia School of Tropical Medicine and the University of Puerto Rico with subsequent support from NIH. Sixty-nine years later, this island colony continues, with NCRR support, to provide a unique international resource for studies in primate behavior. Through periodic culling of the colony, it also provides a steady supply of healthy animals for local and international research. The monkeys live in their own naturally formed social groups and range freely on the island. They live out their day-to- day activities normally. In the 1960s, Carpenter suggested that a similar colony of chimpanzees be established in the Savannah River region of Georgia, but the concept was dropped. If the United States projects a future need for chimpanzees to be used in medicine, and given that the existing U.S. population of chimpanzees is essentially too old to reproduce, immediate establishment of such a colony of chimps makes sense. It would allow the animals to segregate into natural social groups, permit them to live freely in a noncaptive setting, and promote breeding under seminatural conditions. A chimpanzee colony could serve as a reservoir of animals for NIH use as well as provide additional genetic stock for zoo populations. Although a captive colony of chimpanzees would not address the fundamental ethical/moral concerns of those who see no purpose to animal testing, it would serve as a middle ground to provide a more naturalistic home for the chimpanzees, while allowing the biomedical community to maintain a hedge against the loss of breeding animals for future biomedical projects that may be needed to protect human health. Richard G. Rawlins Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA. Reference 1. R. G. Rawlins, M. K. Kessler, Eds., The Cayo Santiago Macaques (SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 1986).
Time to End Research on Chimpanzees 13 March 2007
Theodora Capaldo New England Anti-Vivisection Society, Jarrod Bailey Respond to this E-Letter: Re: Time to End Research on Chimpanzees	We commend the News Focus article “The endangered lab chimp” (26 Jan., 450) for addressing chimpanzee experimentation, in which the United States stands alone amid international bans. Claims that chimpanzees are indispensable center around their purported usefulness to study future epidemics. Yet, many believe their record with present diseases is not impressive, and arguments for their use are not substantiated by tangible contributions to human medicine. Take one of myriad examples: More than 80 failed human AIDS vaccines were tested in chimpanzees. Efforts to end the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research and testing have the support of numerous scientists and academicians who believe that taking this “animal model off the table” is prudent, and that persisting with research involving a species with such limited value and with such emotional, social, and cognitive complexity is irresponsible. The debate rests on the shoulders of scientific examination of its necessity and standards of 21st century humane ethics. Systematic reviews of the efficacy of chimpanzee research are overdue. Meanwhile, their use to study human diseases like AIDS, heart disease, and cancer has declined or no longer exists. On what grounds then can they be assumed a magic bullet for future diseases? The article advises, “to search your soul as to the balance between the research and... what happens to the animals.” Meeting chimpanzee research subjects compels deeper consideration of the latter. Isn’t it up to a civil and ethically and scientifically advanced society to end a practice that one day will be looked back on with revulsion -- just as we now look back on the use of “criminals, paupers, lunatics” (our 1895 mission included ending their use in vivisection as well) and others who at one time science determined to be of lesser value and important to “the research and the good that comes from it,” and who were therefore expendable? Theodora Capaldo and Jarrod Bailey New England Anti-Vivisection Society, 333 Washington Street, Suite 850, Boston, MA 02108-5100, USA.