Tracking the number of papers published on chimpanzee research gives an indication of growth or decline in their use. (1)
From the National Library of Medicine’s index of scientific papers:
| 1951 - 1960 | 60 papers |
| 1961 - 1970 | 201 papers |
| 1971 - 1980 | 1,307 papers |
| 1981 - 1990 | 1,357 papers |
| 1991 - 2000 | 2,024 papers |
| 2000 - 2005 | 1,311 papers |
Results suggest that the greatest increase in chimpanzee use occurred from 1970 to 1980 during which 1,307 papers were published involving chimpanzees, a six-fold increase on the 201 papers from the prior period.
From the National Institutes of Health’s CRISP (2) database of grants funding:
Number of CRISP grants* for chimpanzee research 1972-1985
Funding of research using chimpanzees also suggests a boom during the 1970s (see graph above). From 1972 to 1976, there was a greater than ten-fold increase in awards to projects that referenced chimpanzees. (Note that this database is not available prior to 1972.) That trend in funding remained fairly consistent through to 1985.
SOURCES
(1) Based on results from the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed database http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
(2) Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects (CRISP). http://crisp.cit.nih.gov/
Last update: 10/5/05