IDA Reissues Its Call for an End to Chimpanzee Research

Following Ban on Chimpanzee Breeding by one NIH Institute, Organization Urges Permanent, Irrevocable Ban on Chimpanzee Research in Honor of Jane Goodall

San Rafael, Calif.—In the wake of last week’s announcement by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) that it will continue its ban on breeding government-owned chimpanzees for research that has been in place since 1997, In Defense of Animals (IDA) is reiterating its call to ban chimpanzee research – this time in honor of Dr. Jane Goodall.

Chimpanzees are humankind’s closest living relatives, sharing more than 98 percent of our genetic code. They are highly intelligent and social beings, and are used predominantly in infectious disease experiments. Once infected, they are often kept isolated from other chimpanzees. Since chimpanzees can live for 50 years or more, researchers must allocate funds for long-term care into chimpanzee research budgets. These costs can be high, which NCRR cited as a reason for its continued ban on breeding.

Although NCRR has banned breeding for the past ten years, over 100 chimpanzees have been bred during this time under a contract that is currently funded by another NIH institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which also funds biodefense experiments on chimpanzees.

Inspired by the groundbreaking work by Dr. Jane Goodall to educate the public about the intelligence of chimpanzees and end their exploitation and experimentation on them, IDA, an international animal protection organization, has long spearheaded the movement to end chimpanzee research.

Testifying before the National Academy of Sciences panel that issued the report in 1997 calling for a moratorium on chimpanzee breeding, IDA called for the end of chimpanzee research. IDA’s Congressional testimony in March 2000 reiterated that call and implicated the NIH’s illegal funding of chimpanzee abuse – funding that prompted Congress to launch a broad investigation in 2003. After an eight-year campaign, in 2002 IDA closed down the Coulston Foundation in New Mexico, the world’s largest chimpanzee research lab. An IDA investigation led to historic criminal charges against Charles River Labs, operator of the NIH chimpanzee lab that was Coulston’s successor, in 2004. IDA also has a forest sanctuary in Cameroon, Africa to care for orphaned and abused chimpanzees.

IDA is currently exposing abuse and illegal retaliation at the New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) in Louisiana, where a whistleblower reported cruelty to chimpanzees including an NIRC employee who burned a chimpanzee on the back of the hand with a lighter and threw a bucket of scalding hot water on another. NIRC has replaced the Coulston Foundation as the world’s largest chimpanzee lab.

“The NIH’s malfeasance, corruption and stonewalling regarding its illegal funding of chimpanzee abuse have been ongoing for over ten years, and NCRR has been largely responsible. Its ban has not stopped the NIH-funded, ongoing breeding of over 100 chimpanzees since 1997,” said Elliot M. Katz, DVM, IDA President. “IDA will never rest until all chimpanzee breeding and all chimpanzee experimentation are permanently and irrevocably banned. For these intelligent, sentient beings, their imprisonment and abuse at the hands of the scientific community simply cannot be tolerated.”

“In honor of everything that Dr. Jane Goodall has taught us about our closest living relatives I am determined to see that a ban on chimpanzee experimentation takes place on or before her 75th birthday,” said Katz. “For her and millions of people around the world, a ban on the imprisonment and torture of chimpanzees would be a dream come true. It would be the American people’s way of saying ‘Thank you Dr. Jane Goodall.’”