NEAVS’ Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Labs YouTube video, as well as footage of chimpanzees from the Fauna Foundation, opened last week’s CNN’s ISSUES with Jane Velez-Mitchell. The show, which aired on Friday, 1/14 at 7 pm EST, focused on the victory – at least for now – for the Alamogordo chimpanzees. (See our January 5th eAlert for more information on the National Institutes of Health’s decision to halt their plans to move the Alamogordo chimpanzees to the Southwest National Primate Research Center for use in invasive research.) If you missed the show, you can watch it now on the CNN website.
The segment included an interview with Laura Bonar of Animal Protection of New Mexico (APNM). APNM has been working on the local and state level to save the Alamogordo chimpanzees, in addition to the efforts of NEAVS and other national groups.
A NEAVS member helped arrange the CNN interview, which reached millions of viewers who now know a lot more about the plight of not only the Alamogordo chimpanzees, but all chimpanzees currently held in U.S. labs. (If you or someone you know can also help us get the word out to your local or national media outlets, please contact us at info@neavs.org – members help us move mountains for the animals all the time, and we thank you for that!)
Host Jane Velez-Mitchell, well-known for her animal and environmental advocacy, urged viewers to “Tell your congress members and senators we don’t want our tax dollars used to torture these highly sensitive, highly intelligent cousins of mankind.… Now, the Great Ape Protection Act is gathering support. It would ban all invasive research on chimps. And a growing number of scientists say chimp research is actually holding back medical progress because it’s getting all the research money that should be focused on more sophisticated, cutting edge research methods ….”
Contact CNN to thank them and Jane Velez-Mitchell for this timely coverage of an issue for which the American public and U.S. legislators are showing enormous and growing support. Thank them for reminding viewers that while the Alamogordo chimpanzees are safe for the time being, the only way to save all chimpanzees from invasive research for good is to pass the Great Ape Protection Act. And please ask your U.S. representative and senators to cosponsor the bill today!
2011 is off to a hopeful start for 186 chimpanzees at Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF), who have been granted a reprieve from transfer to a Texas laboratory for use in invasive research.
According to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) statement issued yesterday, the transfer will be delayed “pending an Institute of Medicine [the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences] in-depth analysis to reassess the scientific need for the continued use of chimpanzees….” The report is expected to take about two years.
NEAVS/Project R&R and other national groups, including Animal Protection of New Mexico, breathed a sigh of relief at this decision, which came after months of urging the NIH to keep the chimpanzees in New Mexico. APF, a holding facility, does not conduct experiments on the premises, and the individuals now housed there have been spared from research for the past 10 years. NIH’s plan to move them to the Southwest National Primate Research Center to be readily available for invasive research provoked national opposition, including from New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and other public figures.
Dr. Theodora Capaldo, NEAVS/Project R&R President, stated, “In the midst of national efforts to get all chimpanzees out of invasive research, this decision signals an important willingness on the part of our government to consider their policies toward chimpanzees in research at large.”
For chimpanzees like Flo, Danny, Heidi, Robbie, and the others at APF, the delay in the transfer is good fortune. Flo, the oldest chimpanzee at APF, is 53. According to Animal Protection of New Mexico, she has chronic weight loss, anemia, and cardiac arrhythmias. Flo gave birth to four children, all of whom were taken from her for research. All but one, Jojo — now 27 and also at APF — are dead.
While this halt to the transfer is promising, NEAVS/Project R&R will continue pressing NIH to permanently retire not only the Alamogordo chimpanzees but all those now held in labs. The Great Ape Protection Act, legislation which would end invasive chimpanzee research in the U.S. and release all federally-owned chimpanzees to sanctuary, had 161 cosponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives and six cosponsors in the Senate at the close of the 111th Congress.
NEAVS/Project R&R’s work, including reviews of chimpanzee use in human disease research, along with the work of millions of individuals and dozens of other animal protection groups and sanctuaries, is building steady progress for this legislation. Broad-based support for the bill comes from bipartisan legislative leadership and co-sponsorship, as well as animal protection groups, scientists, chimpanzee experts, celebrities, and the general public.
Please take a moment to thank Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, for this wise and humane decision and to ask that NIH support the Great Ape Protection Act that is now before Congress.
To contact Dr. Collins:
- Send our automated appeal letter
- Write Dr. Francis Collins, Director National Institutes of Health (NIH) 9000 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20892
- Call 301-496-2433 To help us track our progress please log your call
- Email francis.collins@nih.gov
[Chimpanzee photos pictured above were received on September 21, 2010 and obtained through a FOIA request.]
Alamogordo deaths tallied
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, NEAVS/Project R&R has learned that 62 chimpanzees have died at the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF) between 2001 and 2010.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has come under fire in recent months because, after nine years of being housed at the APF, a holding facility at which no research took place, the NIH has decided to transfer all 186 APF chimpanzees to the Southwest National Primate Research Center in Texas, where they will be offered for use nationwide in invasive hepatitis, cancer, autoimmune disease, and other research. The chimpanzee deaths at APF attest to the grim realities of their lives in laboratories and the toll it takes on them:
- Elders such as 49-year-old Maxwell, 46-year-old Josam, and 44-year-old Susie likely spent their entire lives in a laboratory and never got the chance to be safe living in sanctuary.
- Causes of death ranged from sudden cardiac failure, to acute kidney and liver failure, to multiple organ failure in 20-year-old Muna. Rex, only 16, died from generalized septicemia and pneumonia. Marla died from an “anesthetic reaction” at the age of 22.
- Shockingly, three male chimpanzees, Jerome, Ritchie, and 10-year-old Snoy, died within a day of each other in January 2004 from “accidental electrocution.”
The chimpanzees currently at APF have little time left due to their ages and health conditions. Join us in calling upon the NIH to halt the Alamogordo transfer and to retire all remaining chimpanzees to sanctuary before it’s too late.
Public outrage continues
The U.S. National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) plan to transfer an estimated 186 chimpanzees from the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF) in New Mexico to the Southwest National Primate Research Center in Texas, moving them from a holding facility to a lab where they will be more readily available for invasive research.
Before living at APF, these individuals endured years of research or use as “breeders” to make babies to be sent into research. New Mexico citizens and supporters nationwide; animal protection groups; actor Gene Hackman, who has a home in New Mexico; and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson have all joined in urging the NIH to halt their transfer plans.
Recently, Governor Richardson met with officials at the NIH to urge them to keep the chimpanzees in New Mexico and to convert APF into a sanctuary. In his press release following this meeting, Governor Richardson stated, “While it appears they are holding steadfast to their position, I am holding steadfast to mine. I will continue pressing for a humane, long-term care solution for the care of these chimpanzees ….”
To date the NIH appears unmoved.
The Southwest lab has said that the newly arrived chimpanzees will be made available for biomedical research nationwide in hepatitis B and hepatitis C, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. Yet as NEAVS/Project R&R has shown through the research of our Science Director, Dr. Jarrod Bailey, the extensive past use of chimpanzees in these areas has contributed little or nothing of significance to human health, and has in many cases been a costly failure.
We thank Governor Richardson for advocating on behalf of the Alamogordo chimpanzees and urge the public to continue pressuring the NIH to retire the chimpanzees rather than subjecting them to further research.
To get involved in local efforts on behalf of the chimpanzees at APF, go to www.apnm.org/chimps.
For more information on efforts to end all chimpanzee research, including the recent introduction of a Senate version of the Great Ape Protection Act (S.3694) visit releasechimps.org.
At least 14 chimpanzees already moved
On July 1, 2010 at least 14 chimpanzees were moved from the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF) to the Southwest National Primate Research Center (Southwest) in Texas, where they will be available for use in invasive research. The federal government plans to move the rest of the 188 chimpanzees housed at APF to Southwest by early 2011. “This is an urgent situation … New Mexico wants to save these chimpanzees who have already given so much of their lives to the American public as part of medical research studies,” said New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson in a July 22 release.
According to the release, Gov. Richardson sent a letter to Dr. Francis Collins, Director of National Institutes of Health (NIH), asking the federal government to permanently retire the 202 chimpanzees, return the 14 chimpanzees who have already been sent to Texas, and convert APF into a sanctuary.
Since 2001, APF has served as a holding facility, run by Charles River Laboratories under a NIH contract, for these government-owned chimpanzees. No research was conducted on the premises of APF. The few individuals used in active research were sent out to other facilities. All records suggest this was a rare occurrence. Once the government moves them to Southwest, however, they will be more readily available for invasive research.
Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest (CSNW) in Washington says that several of the chimpanzees they rescued from the Buckshire Corporation in 2008 have children at APF. Foxie, Negra, and Jody — all now safely at CSNW — were formerly used for breeding and had their children taken away from them shortly after birth. While they themselves were eventually rescued and brought to sanctuary, their children remain in harm’s way. Foxie’s son David, Negra’s daughter Heidi, and Jody’s children Levi and April are all at APF. Sadly, NEAVS/Project R&R has learned that Levi is one of the 14 chimpanzees who have already been sent to Southwest.
Stop the transfer of Alamogordo chimpanzees
We’ve learned that the federal government plans to move more than 200 chimpanzees now living at the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF) to the Southwest National Primate Research Center in Texas. At APF the vast majority of chimpanzees were being warehoused. Once the Air Force’s program finished its gravity experiments and the infamous Coulston Foundation closed down, the government elected to maintain 288 chimpanzees at the Alamogordo facility. In the last 10 years, a miniscule number were sent into research at other facilities. Once at Southwest, the remaining chimpanzees will be readily available for invasive research.The government plans to move 14-15 chimpanzees this summer and the remainder in January 2011. Housing renovations are underway at Southwest funded by taxpayer dollars.
