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Chimpanzees at Chimp Haven in Keithville, La.
More than 100 chimpanzees that have lived virtually their entire lives in scientific laboratories will be sent to retire at a national sanctuary called Chimp Haven, the National Institutes of Health said Tuesday.
“These animals have made important contributions to research to improve human health, but new technologies have reduced the need for their continued use in research,” NIH Director Francis S. Collins said in a statement.
The 113 chimps currently live at the New Iberia Research Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where they’ve been used to research diseases and test and develop medicine. Most of them have never walked on grass or seen the sky without bars.
The NIH had previously announced that just 10 chimps from New Iberia would move to Chimp Haven in Keithville, La., with the remaining 103 being sent to Texas Biomedical Research Institute in Texas. But animal rights activists objected. After months of negotiations, the NIH, the Humane Society of the United States and Chimp Haven agreed on the plan announced Tuesday.
“This is a ray of light for captive chimpanzees,” Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle said.
Dr. Linda Brent, president of Chimp Haven, hailed the plan as the result of unprecedented cooperation.
“We look forward to continuing efforts on behalf of additional chimpanzees retired in the future,” Brent said.
Related: Ken & Rosie: Inside chimpanzee research lab
Related: Goodall praises NIH decision to remove some chimps from research
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Chimp Haven currently houses 106 chimps owned by the federal government. Brent said the sanctuary focuses on giving the primates relative freedom and choices they don’t have at a lab.
To implement the plan, Chimp Haven must raise $2.3 million to build additional enclosures. The Humane Society has agreed to donate $500,000. The New England Anti-Vivisection Society said it would provide a matching gift of $100,000.
Ken and Rosie are 30-year-old chimpanzees that were born in research labs and have spent most of their lives in labs dedicated to finding cures for human diseases. The use of chimpanzees in invasive medical research has long been debated. Primatologists like Jane Goodall argue against the use of chimpanzees in medical research, while some researchers say testing is crucial and has saved human lives. Lisa Myers reports.
“This group of chimpanzees has endured so much” said Kathleen Conlee, vice president of animal research issues at the Humane Society. “We hope that those who have used these animals in the past, including the pharmaceutical industry, will contribute to this effort so that the chimpanzees can now live in the sanctuary that they deserve.”
The primates will be moved in two phases beginning in January or February. The first group of chimps will fill out existing houses at Chimp Haven. The second group will move when enough money has been raised for construction, which is expected to be finished within 12 to 15 months.
The New Iberia primates include eight young chimps that were born in the lab and that will move to the sanctuary with their mothers.
Four members of the chimp colony will not move on with the others, however, as veterinarians have determined they are too sick to transfer. They will live out their lives at the New Iberia lab.
A chimp is sedated to draw blood in the effort to find a cure for Hepatitis C at Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
Dr. John Pippin of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine said Chimp Haven is the retirement the chimps deserve.
“I look forward to the day when all chimpanzees are made ineligible for experimentation and can spend their days in sanctuaries,” Pippin said.
The doctor said he will renew his efforts to retire another 14 chimps that were transferred two years ago to Texas Biomed from a facility in Alamogordo, N.M. They were slated to be used for hepatitis research but they have not yet been used. Pippin said they are old and have medical conditions.
“We believe it is clear that they are not needed for research and should be retired,” he said.
An NIH advisory committee is now developing recommendations on how to deal with hundreds of other NIH chimpanzees still in labs in light of recent findings that most current invasive research on our closest biological relative is unnecessary.
Donations for the construction of retirement housing at Chimp Haven can be made to Chimp Haven, the Humane Society and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.
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Leave a Comment:
Can we retire Richard Engel there, too?
He needs a rest, but he can also keep the chimps amused with his dual-loyalist, zionist babbling.
You're just jealous cause he was taken hostage and you weren't
'Ray of light': Lab chimpanzees to retire to sanctuary
I hope these good ol boys have Medicare coverage after what they have been through...
An 18 hole golf course with caddies and a few Bananas wouldnt hurt either...
Judging by the picture, boy do they know how to smoke some weed....burried deep from the prying eyes of the cops!!! That's some smart folks right there
lets not pick on dick engel. reports are coming out, while he was held hostage, he was denied a blow dryer and had to use cheap syrian hairspray. not cool.
I love how these threads get off topic right from the "get-go." It brings a spark of humor to my day. Thank you all!
Be careful with the zionist comments lest some zionist pig from the j.d.l. shows up at your front door . . .
Wow, the comments here show much hatred and are quite typical of some young liberals. Grow up!
I feel so sorry for what these chimps had to endure. I am so happy that they are getting away from the labs!
Crimmey Linda, I still feel sorry for the chimps. Retiring to Louisiana? How many people you know what to retire to Louisiana?
I'm with DocHolliday. Golf course, jacuzzi, San Diego (maybe Miami), and all you can drink Banana Daiquiris!
Ofcourse the lab is going to show humane treatment when they know the cameras are there. Do an undercover investigation and it will be a different story.
I'm sick of the human species.
I agree things would most likely be different if the cameras weren't rolling however I fairly certain both you and I as well as everyone else currently use or have used something that is only available because of this kind of testing. While I hate seeing any animal used in this way its hard for me to be against it when I may have used something associated to this for my benefit.
@ bsizzler,
I'm not. We have more in common immune system wise with rats, than we do with chimps. Our eyes are more like a Beagle's than a chimps.
Ive unfortunately had to work (as a subcontractor working on a facility issue) at one of these research labs for a week. It is appalling. I was stunned that medical doctors, who need to take a vow to protect and heal people, could do this to such intelligent creatures.
Where they keep the chimps, they used to have bars until one of them threw it's feces at a researcher and it got in her eye. She ended up dying within a week. Now they are pure sheets of plexiglass. The smell is unbearable, and a non-descript refrigerated truck would enter once a week in the middle of the night to take the bodies away.
@ D Man
I don't doubt any of what you say. The point I was making is why I don't like it one bit many of todays technologies are because of animal testing. Much of what we use and don't think twice about is because of cruel animal testing. So Im torn in the middle between loving animals and also knowing no animal testing could seriously slow future discoveries.
WHy are they experimenting on innocent animals who are unlike humans when there are murderers and child molesters in prison that should be used instead! Experiment on prisoners and it will have a two fold effect of finding cures for disease AND lower the crime rate!
Daisy06 - There's hope for humans - join the groups who make a difference in this world. You will see a side of humanity that will give you hope.
@daisy and Elaine--physiological research labs do make a huge difference in this world. I like how some of these commenters are the same people who shout to use prisoners in experiments.....when there are people in prison who're innocent. Perhaps it just shows who truly has a violent nature in this world... I look forward to the day when research doesn't use a live model of any kind.
Seeing Chimp and Retirement in the headline I assumed this was an article about public employees. My bad!
Chimp Haven = Washington, DC
You are a loser Bob. Most public employees have worked for pennies on the dollar and risked their very lives saving yours to have a retirement. Many have saved thousands of lives and property but I guess people like you expect that for free. I bet your pasty butt is home sitting on your recliner watching TV while those public employees are out keeping you safe!
Till one of them escapes and eats off somebody's face.
Definitely better to stop medical research, and let people die. The world is overpopulated anyway.
I am totally against using animals for lab studies.Use scumbags on death row instead.
I've been saying this for years. Wouldn't it be better to test on humans anyway? What better than death row inmates!
I can't stand to see any animal suffer!
Robert & Ohio, does the name Dr. Josef Mengele ring a bell? I think the Nazis tried that, history doesn't look too fondly on them for it.
I think Josef Mengele was brilliant.
Robert54,
I am right there with you... And for the rest of you: Joseph Mengele was a monster. There are still people walking around today suffering from the abuse he wreaked on mankind. He attacked innocent people who were villified for nothing more than their religious beliefs, political leanings and or any disagrement with the nsp. Experimenting on convicted rapists, murderers, child molesters and drug kingpins, is not the same. They have already proven their uselessness to society. When we are done with the "experimentation", the usable organs should be donated for transplantation and then, perhaps this societal cancer will have finally repaid its debt for the damage they have done.
BrainiacV, yes that name does ring a bell but it's a far stretch bringing Dr. Mengele into this. I am talking about using death row inmates vs jewish children to conduct experiements. Actually the apes they are testing did nothing wrong to be used for testing where death row inmate have proved they are no use to society.
robert54,
right on, that's what I always say. They proof they are not fit for society, make them repay to it.
I am against animal testing (we have no right to torture them); instead use worthless humans, such as Jeffrey Dahmer, etc. At least the results are comparable to humans.
I heard these chimps are getting not only social security but had excellent 401K packages with matching
Heck, if they were civilian government employees, they get 90% of their pay (that's a lot of bananas) for life.
i would happily support using my tax dollars for the care of these chimps while at the same time using condemned inmates for medical research.
AMEN Uncle Henry....AMEN. Well said...
These unfortunate animals have earned their retirement. It makes me happy to read this.
The inhumane treatment of lab animals must come to a halt. Read "the Hot Zone" for eye opening disclosures of how research animals are often treated.
Great to see these animals will finally get the care and housing that they need. It's so sad to think an outdoor animal has spent its entire life inside just so humans can run countless tests on it. Hope they really enjoy their new digs.
They should stop all research on all animals. This includes the dogs that they use - do you know they cut their vocal cords? And cats, mice, rats, etc. NO MORE ANIMAL ABUSE!
Use the people on death row!
Doc Holliday - unfortunately instead of smoking weed, the chimps are only "smokin out" some of their favorite
delicacies - termites - from their termite mound. The chimps jab the sticks into openings, out come the termites to attack the stick, and gobble into the chimps mouths they go.
...a "ray of light". We, as a country have our "priorities" and sensibilities backwards. We applaud this nonsense, while we ABORT 5,000 HUMANS each day. How incredibly sad.
So after a lifetime of tortuous treatment and confinement, they are given a last few years of semi-normal life. Guess that makes their treatment alright. How humane we humans are.
This is wonderful news! Chimpanzees are intelligent, social creatures and all of the chimps currently in research labs should be retired to sanctuaries.
When I hear about animal testing, especially on Great Apes, I can't help but thing of the orangutans that have learned to communicate with each other via iPads. (I can barely use my iPhone.) Or Koko, the famous gorilla who learned sign language and adopted a kitten. It's high time that we stopped experimenting on them and move towards better, human-based methods.
Death row and life prisoners would be better choices for medical research.
I'm glad they have an ostensibly better life, but I can't help but wonder how many chimps died a suffering death from the research.
As repugnant and heartbreaking as animal research is, I'm reminded of a response comment to a lab-animal protest. It was, "thanks to animal research, they can protest an average of 25 years longer."
This is an issue about which I am torn, and I'm glad to hear that, according to the article, technology is replacing the research animal "jobs," as it has done for many humans.
Rent the video - Chimpanzees in America : An Unnatural History, if you'd like a close up view of chimps in this very situation. If it doesn't open your eyes and tug at your heart at least a little, there's something seriously wrong with you.
I have two uncles who are lab scientists. One of them experiments on animals (he is in a corporate setting) and the other one tells me technology has evolved beyond using animals and they test on manufactured material that represents human bodies (he work in a hospital). If they have that technology, why not use it? I must say, though, the uncle who works on animals treats them humanely and when the rats he works with "retire" he brings them home and keeps them as pets. At least he used to until my aunt made him stop. And those suggesting we test on prisoners, have you ever heard of the Nazis?
@ECF, you are 100% right on. In response to your question, I'd offer that it takes a lot of time and work to develop any meaningful experimental apparatus that would be accepted by the scientific community. (Scientists are a VERY skeptical group, to put it mildly.)
Science without compassion is dangerous not only to the chimps and other research animals but to us as well. Many drugs on the market today are dangerous to human health. When you make medicine into a profit making machine then ethics and compassion are destroyed in favor of greed.
No compassion--a life of suffering, pain, depravation--over and over. We didn't need to do this for the results we got.
These people just want to stay employed with a high salary using "fear" on people that if they don't continue we will all die--news, we are doing that to ourselves already----
No more experimentation on animals--these labs nothing but animal cruelty sanctified by big bucks.
I wonder why the medical community has not petitioned the supreme court to use convicted murders, rapists, and lifers to medical research. Seems to me that would be in the best interest instead of using animals that have no gene linking to humans.
The medical community would profit in that humans are a better subject and therefor make better research animals that they are.
They would be footing all the bills and upkeep, relieving the populace of housing, medical, guarding, and feeding the condemned.
All in favor say "I".
Robert54,I agree with you totally,use prison inmates.There are alot of aholes that would love this type of retirement..
I'm happy to say that I belong to the HSUS and we helped make this all possible with our constant haranging of the politicos and the corporate smug mugs who think this abuse is great - it's only 'great' for their pocketbooks. Please join us at HSUS.org and see how you can help.