Chimpanzees and the NIH

[GracieRuth]

Is anyone else following the scandal regarding NIH and the chimps? I find the whole thing very disturbing. Even if one believes that vivisection is moral, how can it justify torturing of animals so closely related to us?

 

[barbad0s]

I don't see how ethics change when it comes to our fellow animals other than humans. Plus, testing on other animals, regardless of how close they are to us genetically, is not going to give an accurate indication of how humans function under the same circumstances.

 

[barbad0s]

I found these comments under the article on Wired magazine relevant:

Perhaps the "Wired" staff found this news piece relevant for the following reasons: a) the United States is the last developed nation in the world that still uses chimpanzees in large scale biomedical testing (all other nations abandoned/banned the practice over a decade ago, given newer, more accurate, efficient and cost-effective methods that evolved from the Human Genome Project); b) Congress is now questioning the ethical, moral and fiscal outcomes of maintaining nearly 1,000 chimpanzees in federally funded facilities via the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act; and c) the "science" upon which the use of chimpanzees in biomedical testing has been under fire for years, as have been the relationships between the NIH, Big Pharma and the FDA (following the money trail yields interesting findings that point to huge financial incentives for continuing the torture and abuse of these great apes to use questionable science to bring new drugs -- with unknown side effects -- to market.) These chimpanzees are hostages in a huge economic war. But what else can you expect from a nation that sends its sons and daughters to the Middle East to exchange their blood for oil? Welcome to the new American corprate oligarchy.

What possible good could these chips be for research after all the years of experiment they have already gone through. Is the current symptoms shown by the animal from today's drugs or from the ones they fed it 20 years ago.

This article seems to be pretty one-sided though. What's the medical researchers' perspective? Surely in this situation the people involved should be engaged, not simply portrayed as soulless monsters.
Yes, repeated experiments on chimpanzees sound especially cruel. However, let's not forget that there are thousands, if not millions of people who are slowly dying from hepatitis C in Africa, India, Pakistan, etc. Unfortunately, with many diseases there is only one or very few species of animals on which the disease can be studied, and usually only emulation of the disease in primates gets to be sufficiently close to the clinical presentation/pathology in humans. At the same time, there are orders of magnitude more animals killed for food every day than there are animals used for research. At least once a week I see a killed squirrel or bird on a small road that goes to our apartment - there's 20 miles an hour limit and it still happens.

I am not advocating for needless cruelty in experiments on animals, especially on primates. As much as possible, these experiments should be avoided and used only when necessary. At the same time, this issue has not been ignored and scientists have been the first ones to come to realization that ethical standards in research, animal and otherwise, are needed. There are national and international standards and protocols on animal research, and there must exist competent people who assess the way these experiments are carried out, especially when it comes to chimps. So it would be nice to hear not only from animal rights advocates' side but also from the scientists themselves and from some more independent sources. I wish we could have a more informed conversation. Mindlessly dehumanizing scientists is just as bad as mindlessly being cruel to animals.