USA: Autopsy study reinforces need to get chimpanzees to sanctuary

Chimpanzee autopsy study reinforces urgent need for U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to define and implement retirement criteria to get chimpanzees to sanctuary

Press Release

Oct. 22, 2012 – Boston, Mass. – A Review of Autopsy Reports on Chimpanzees in or from U.S. Laboratories, in press for the October 2012 journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals (ATLA), Volume 40, Issue 5, compiles data from 110 autopsies performed in the last 10 years on chimpanzees who died in or were from laboratories. The data show a full 64% of those chimpanzees suffered significant chronic illnesses and 69% had multi-organ diseases that should have rendered them too sick for research use. Yet, despite this knowledge on the part of the laboratories, many of these chimpanzees were held in labs for research despite their poor health and unsuitability for use.

The study raises concerns that labs circumvent their ethical and scientific responsibilities by not retiring chimpanzees who should be deemed no longer needed for research and therefore eligible for sanctuary under the 2000 Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection Act (CHIMP Act). Its findings challenge current practice allowing laboratories to decide who is sent to sanctuary, and concludes the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must meet her legal mandate and define and enforce stringent criteria for retirement rather than leaving the decision to laboratories with a financial interest in maintaining all chimpanzees.

“Recommendations by the Institute of Medicine concluding they see no necessity for chimpanzee use in most areas of current research implicitly demand an end to warehousing chimpanzees in labs,” said study co-author Marge Peppercorn, MD. “The practice is scientifically and ethically indefensible. Our review of chimpanzee deaths adds urgency to this demand.”....

Source: Autopsy study reinforces need to get chimpanzees to sanctuary
Author: New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS)

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