Release & Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories

Other Federal Facilities

Who’s There?
Who are the chimpanzees at these facilities?

Other government laboratory facilities using or housing chimpanzees in the U.S. are:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Some of these organizations fund (or contract to have) experiments conducted on chimpanzees at other facilities.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Atlanta, GA

Approximate number of chimpanzees: 6*

* Reflects 2007 information received directly from the facility.

History & Profile

Founded in 1946 to help control malaria, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is “one of the 13 major operating components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).” (1)

The CDC has an Animal Policy Board, which oversees its animal program, facilities, and procedures. (2)

Chimpanzee Use

Purportedly the CDC uses chimpanzees in hepatitis research. However, the CDC has refused to disclose the location of these chimpanzees. (3)

Financials

On December 8, 2004, the President signed into law H.R. 4818, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, for fiscal year 2005. CDC received a total funding level of $6.9 billion for FY 2005 (4).

Address

1600 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30333

Sources

(1) www.cdc.gov/about/default.htm

(2) www.cdc.gov/od/ads/animal.htm

(3) www.primatefreedom.com/chimpanzees/index.html; www.seec.net/census/cdc.htm

(4) http://www.hhs.gov/budget/05budget/centers.html

Food and Drug Administration

Rockville, MD

Approximate number of chimpanzees: 11

History & Profile

Authorized by Congress to enforce the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and several other public health laws, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates such things as food, cosmetics, medicines, medical devices, and radiation-emitting consumer products. (1)

Within the FDA, the Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research (CBER) regulates vaccines, xenotransplantation products, and other biological products. (2) CBER “conducts active mission-related research programs” under various research divisions, including the Division of Viral Products under which is the Laboratory of Hepatitis Viruses. (3)

Chimpanzee Use

According to an animal advocate website, the FDA uses chimpanzees in hepatitis C virus vaccine research. (4) A researcher at the FDA, Konstantin Chumakov, has used chimpanzees in polio research.

Financials

The FDA’s website claims that the agency works “at a cost to taxpayers of about $3 a person.” (5) The FDA’s actual program funding level was $1.695 million for FY 2004, and its estimated program funding level is $1.801 million for FY 2005 and $1.881 million for FY 2006. (6)

Address

5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857

Sources

(1) www.fda.gov/opacom/faqs/faqs.html

(2) www.fda.gov/cber/faq.htm

(3) www.fda.gov/cber/research.htm; www.fda.gov/cber/research/dvp.htm

(4) www.seec.net/alerts/fda.htm

(5) www.fda.gov/opacom/faqs/faqs.html

(6) www.fda.gov/oc/oms/ofm/budget/2006/PDFs/Summary/Pages56thru57.pdf

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, MD

Approximate number of chimpanzees: 11

History & Profile

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the federal agency responsible “for conducting and supporting medical research.” (1) NIH “traces its roots to 1887 with the creation of the Laboratory of Hygiene at the Marine Hospital in Staten Island, NY.” (2) NIH claims that its “mission is science in pursuit of fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability.” (3)

NIH has 27 institutes and centers (4):

National Cancer Institute
National Eye Institute
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Human Genome Research Institute
National Institute on Aging
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
National Institute on Drug Abuse
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
National Institute of Nursing Research
National Library of Medicine
Center for Information Technology
Center for Scientific Review
John E. Fogarty International Center
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities
National Center for Research Resources
NIH Clinical Center

Through its National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), NIH supports eight national primate research centers (NPRCs), which are located across the country and use “nonhuman primates as animal models of human diseases.” (5) Two of the NPRCs – Yerkes and Southwest – hold chimpanzees.

NIH provides funding to the NPRCs as well as grants to private laboratories for research that uses chimpanzees.

NIH also owns the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico which holds approximately 275 chimpanzees.

Chimpanzee Use

NIH research using chimpanzees has included studies involving bioterrorism and the Norwalk virus. A researcher at the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, Robert Purcell, studied “New Approaches to Passive and Active Immunoprophylaxis” under Grant No. 1Z01AI000823-07. Another researcher, Kim Green, studied the “Norwalk Virus and Related Norwalk-like Viruses in Viral Gastroenteritis” under Grant No. 1Z01AI000343-19.

In the 1980s, NIH established a breeding program to “have an adequate supply of these animals available for biomedical research purposes.” (6) “Based on the recommendations in a report from the National Academy of Sciences, NCRR has created a NIH Chimpanzee Management Program (ChiMP).” (7) ChiMP supports “housing and maintenance at three NIH-supported facilities for chimpanzees, funded by NCRR through cooperative agreements.” (8) NIH’s website also states that, “cooperative agreements and grants also support a database and applied research that optimize the use of chimpanzees in research.” (9) Read about the chimpanzee breeding moratorium.