Many Americans would be surprised to learn that chimpanzees are still being used in biomedical research and that millions of other animals are utilized in consumer product and toxicity testing. Others may find a sense of security in knowing that this practice continues to provide information on which chemicals and products are deemed safe. The fact is that it doesn't have to be this way, and there are a number of public health, economic and animal welfare reasons to change our ways.

The evolving process by which the U.S. regulates chemicals is important to every American household. Increasing awareness of potential risks is key to ensuring the safety of American consumers, but what we don't know can hurt us, and there is a lot that we don't know despite advances in science.

Unfortunately, the current system for chemical testing is inconsistent and overwhelmed by the testing needs of an endless flow of new products and chemicals, causing a backlog of chemical assessments. Further, much of our system relies upon inconsistent results from animal testing. Policymakers have been slow to update the laws that govern chemical safety and to modernize the tests required by these laws.

Recent scientific advances offer to fundamentally change the way chemicals are tested for human health risks. These advances, which include in vitro testing, make it possible to rely less heavily on animal studies and instead focus on evaluating chemicals' effects on biological processes. Through this approach, scientists can generate improved data to evaluate risks while expanding the number of chemical assessments using less time and money and fewer animal subjects. Several federal agencies — the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health — embraced this approach and are working hard to further develop the science to make this vision a reality.

Earlier this year, an NIH working group proposed a plan to shift away from using chimpanzees as test subjects in their own studies, citing both technological advances and ethical concerns that had been raised in a study by the Institute of Medicine. The Institute of Medicine concluded that most current use of chimps was largely unnecessary. The working group plan called for the retirement of 300 chimps to a sanctuary where they can live out their lives. This is a welcome change and should serve to inform policymakers as we seek a chemical regulatory system that promotes public health, science and animal welfare.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences also called into question the reliance on mice in medical research for three major, often-fatal conditions — sepsis, burns and trauma — because their responses are inconsistent with the human response. It is not only the mice that have suffered as a result; significant amounts of time and resources were squandered on ineffective testing, and opportunities to help patients with these conditions have been delayed.

Improved chemical testing is not only an issue of human and animal well-being but also one of enormous economic consequence. Embracing alternative methods for toxicity testing is an excellent way to provide evidence that chemicals are fit for use in commerce in an efficient, thorough and less expensive manner. Recently, the European Union introduced a complete ban on the sale of all new cosmetics if the cosmetic, or any component of the cosmetic, has been tested on animals, further making the American economic case for advancing alternative testing methods.

Going forward, we need to create a chemical testing system that allows families to enjoy a more risk-free environment, bolsters confidence in products we all use, and brings on-line exciting new testing methods that obviate whenever possible the need for animal subjects. The American public wants — and deserves — no less.

Rep. Jim Moran, a Democrat, represents Virginia's 8th District. Paul A. Locke, an environmental health scientist and attorney, is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Division of Molecular and Translational Toxicology. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Johns Hopkins University or the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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The following comments were submitted by NEAVS and co-signers Fauna Foundation Sanctuary, Primate Rescue Center, and Chimps, Inc. We fully support nearly all the CoC recommendations, but see no reason, scientifically or ethically, to accept the recommendation to hold 50 chimpanzees for “future potential research.”

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA1

Chimpanzees must have the opportunity to live in sufficiently large, complex, multi-male, multi-female social groupings, ideally consisting of at least 7 individuals. Unless dictated by clearly documented medical or social circumstances, no chimpanzee should be required to live alone for extended periods of time. Pairs, trios, and even small groups of 4 to 6 individuals do not provide the social complexity required to meet the social needs of this cognitively advanced species. When chimpanzees need to be housed in groupings that are smaller than ideal for longer than necessary, for example, during routine veterinary examinations or when they are introduced to a new social group, this need should be regularly reviewed and documented by a veterinarian* and a primate behaviorist.

*In this context, the Working Group defines a “veterinarian” as a licensed, graduate veterinarian with demonstrated expertise in the clinical care and welfare of nonhuman primates (preferably chimpanzees) and who is directly responsible for the routine clinical care of the animal(s) in question.

Attention to the psychological needs of chimpanzees in laboratories, though already required by federal law, is not met in typical lab environments as attested to in the degree of behavioral symptoms many chimpanzees in or from labs exhibit. Only sanctuaries can consistently meet these needs, as their mission is to rehabilitate and provide restitution for chimpanzees who have been held in captivity and suffered trauma as a result of that confinement or research use.

Since psychological damage occurs at the individual level, an institutional approach to chimpanzee care is by definition insufficient, e.g. some traumatized chimpanzees may actually not be able to live with more than one or two other chimpanzees and require comfortable but not ever-changing environments to mitigate symptoms such as PTSD and other induced maladies. It is crucial that intervention and rehabilitation is individually based and tailored to specific strategies that serve a given individual at a given time in her/his life. At existing chimpanzee sanctuaries, through relationships with caregivers and/or other chimpanzees, there is an effort to rebuild agency, confidence, and competence physically and socially, in order to revitalize psychological coping strategies, environmental control, and positive anticipation. For asymptomatic chimpanzees all suggested definitions of “ethologically appropriate” environments should be adopted. For all other chimpanzees, such environments should be fine-tuned to meet the needs of those individual chimpanzees en route to a rehabilitative goal of restoring normal chimpanzee behavior and well-being. Interventions to meet this goal need to be continually reassessed and evaluated on the basis of how successful they are. The sole criteria of their success should be based on improvements, or lack thereof, of the individual chimpanzees on whose behalf they have been designed.

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA2

The density of the primary living space of chimpanzees should be at least 1,000 ft2 (93 m2) per individual. Therefore, the minimum outdoor enclosure size for a group of 7 animals should be 7,000 ft2 (651 m2).

This space requirement is far more in line with the territorial and roaming needs of free living chimpanzees, and is an ethical and long overdue improvement from the now still allowable requirement of 5’x5’x7’ caging. No existing laboratory could or does meet this new and justifiable criterion. Some existing sanctuaries already have acres of land to expand to further fulfill their mandate – lifetime care for rescued and retired chimpanzees. NIH has already unfortunately funded laboratories for expansion. For example, between 2000 and 2010 alone, laboratories received an estimated more than $7 million for 100% of construction costs to add on to their current facilities (see attachment). Because the federal sanctuary allows noninvasive behavioral research and post-mortem studies, all chimpanzees retired there can be considered a research resource even once all invasive biomedical research using chimpanzees has ended, and should qualify for 100% NIH construction grants as well.

Federal dollars are better spent on construction to expand and build at federal sanctuary, which “is the most species-appropriate environment currently available and thus is the preferred environment for long-term housing of chimpanzees no longer required for research” (Working Group Report, p. 6) or at private qualifying sanctuaries. NIH demonstrated that it would pay for lab construction and equipment costs for chimpanzees “permanently ineligible for biomedical research” in a $2.7 million grant to Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Grant 3U42OD011184-02S2 for the budget period of 09/12 through 07/13). This funded equipment for the transferred chimpanzees amounted to $130,000 (e.g. blood pressure monitors, mobile lift tables, stretchers, a dental unit, an I-Stat machine, and ECG machine, an anesthesia machine, a camera system, etc.), supplies and medicine were an additional $67,000, and facility alterations and renovations were just over $15,000. Salaries, benefits, personnel costs, consultant fees, travel, “other” costs, and indirect costs comprised the remainder of the $2.7 million grant.

Federal dollars would go further in sanctuaries than in laboratories, with more immediate implications for chimpanzee well-being. The CHIMP Act requires that at least 10% of construction costs come from non-federal contributions, whereas 100% of construction costs at laboratories have been funded since that law was enacted by the federal government. Labs are funded even in the absence of active protocol use and, as in the 2011 example above, for chimpanzees deemed ineligible for research. Sanctuary costs can and must be offset by transferring all supplies and equipment purchased with federal dollars from labs to sanctuaries. Details on such previous NIH funding are provided in the attachment.

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA3

Chimpanzees must be housed in environments that provide outdoor access year round. They should have access to natural substrates, such as grass, dirt, and mulch, to enhance environmental complexity.

Sanctuaries have long provided access to outdoors, natural substrates, and environmental complexity as a necessity for chimpanzee well-being. Apes and all primates possess inquisitive brains, strong needs for stimulation and investigation, and an innate relationship with the natural world. Sensory and motor limitations and deprivation in laboratory environments (even the most enriched lab does not meet qualifying sanctuary standards) constitute a major stressor which can and does affect both physical and psychological well-being. Decades of animal research as well as human data from prisoners of war and other forced confinement and isolation all attest to the devastating effects of barren environments on well-being and even life expectancy. A large percentage of chimpanzees currently owned or supported by NIH have lived some and likely most of their lives without access to the outdoors, night nesting materials, or a diet even close to what would have been available to them in their natural worlds. Some, many, or most have been forced to spend some, much, or most of their lives alone in a 5’x5’x7’ cage. For example, a large number of chimpanzees at NYU’s Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates spent decades in suspended 5’x5’x7’(actually slightly under 7’) cages prior to the lab closing. Some were rescued directly to sanctuary, others were rescued years later after being held and used by the Coulston Foundation – still others remain part of the U.S. lab population.

What is provided to chimpanzees in labs is in striking contrast to what they are offered in all North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA) sanctuaries. In all cases, chimpanzees have free access to a variety of outdoor and indoor environments, blankets, and other nesting materials, a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, and opportunities for outside foraging. Replicating their natural physical (as well as behavioral and social) world as much as possible (within the serious limitations of captivity) is the standard of care and key component of criteria for inclusion in NAPSA (and Global Federation of Sanctuaries certification). NAPSA includes Chimp Haven, Save the Chimps, Center for Great Apes, Fauna Foundation, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, Chimps, Inc., and Primate Rescue Center. In addition to federal sanctuary, other NAPSA sanctuaries are willing and able to accept federal chimpanzees with appropriate federal funding.

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA4

Chimpanzees should have the opportunity to climb at least 20 ft (6.1 m) vertically. Moreover, their environment must provide enough climbing opportunities and space to allow all members of larger groups to travel, feed, and rest in elevated spaces.

This standard should be accepted with the caveat that aging, sick, or injured chimpanzees, of which most likely a significant number of federally-owned or supported chimpanzees can be deemed, must be provided with climbing and other housing structures that allow for their diminished or diminishing physical capacities. Several North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA) sanctuaries have already changed or added to their construction and planning to provide for such special needs of individual chimpanzees in more protective environments that still allow and encourage natural behaviors. A good example is that of Sue Ellen, from LEMSIP and now at Fauna Sanctuary. She sustained a severe hip injury at LEMSIP as the result of an attack when she was inappropriately placed with Billy Jo, who she had been raised with as a brother, in an attempt to breed them. In addition, some in captivity show limitations as the result of progressing illness, natural aging, and/or manifesting symptoms from old lab injuries. While the 20 ft. climbing structures will be ideal for most chimpanzees, as with those requiring more individualized housing to meet their psychosocial needs, so too will chimpanzees with physical limitations require structures that, while providing “opportunity,” do so with protective design to meet physical limitations where required.

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA5

Progressive and ethologically appropriate management of chimpanzees must include provision of foraging opportunities and of diets that are varied, nutritious, and challenging to obtain and process.

All North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA) sanctuaries meet or exceed this requirement. Therefore, it is an adoptable recommendation essential to providing for chimpanzee well-being. Historically, lab diets have consisted of predominantly chow with some fruits and vegetables. Sanctuaries have provided just the opposite: predominantly fruits, vegetables, and nuts supplemented with chow. In the wild, chimpanzee diets are extremely varied and an important social activity. Dietary variety and enriched procurement that mimics their natural needs should not be optional. Many qualifying sanctuaries, in addition to purchased produce, also offer further natural foraging of surrounding or planted trees or vegetation.

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA6

Chimpanzees must be provided with materials to construct new nests on a daily basis.

North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA) sanctuaries meet and exceed this criterion. Most provide a variety of nesting options and then make choices available on an individual preference basis, ranging from plush blankets, straw, and other natural substrate, to large and several pieces of flat cardboard. Importantly, the individual chimpanzees decide on what and where he or she prefers to sleep, and their options are not limited.

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA7

The environmental enrichment program developed for chimpanzees must provide relevant opportunities for choice and self-determination.

Choice and self-determination are the most imperative improvements in the daily life of a chimpanzee after arriving to sanctuary from a laboratory. Without the ability to make choices, even if limited by confinement, rehabilitation will be more limited in its success and therefore so too will a chimpanzee’s well-being. The mindset, atmosphere, and goals of labs are unable to accommodate for this recommendation. Labs are designed to function with efficiency. Routine is critical to accomplishing this in any institution. As such, and as in even human institutions, the needs of individuals are often secondary or even sacrificed to the need for efficiency. While no doubt efforts are made at the hands of caring lab workers to meet individual needs, we have heard from dozens of lab workers who have been frustrated and defeated by their inability “to do more.” Worse, some have told us they have been chastised for “taking too long” and warned that they “have a job to do,” which did not in those cases include tending to individual needs of the animals for whose care they were responsible. However, this CoC recommendation is a core adopted policy and procedure of North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA) sanctuaries. Opposite to the experience of some animal care workers in labs, sanctuaries have let go of caregivers who did not deeply hold and manifest this core value. This and other differences in what is provided in sanctuary versus what is or even can be provided in a functioning research facility set sanctuaries apart and should position them in the eyes of NIH as the only viable option for retirement placement of any and all federal chimpanzees. It is, in fact, an ideal partnership for NIH to engage in as it costs slightly less, offers significantly more, and is a direct response to public and legislative sentiment that it is time to retire and provide better care for our federal population of chimpanzees.

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA8

Chimpanzee management staff must include experienced and trained behaviorists, animal trainers, and enrichment specialists to foster positive human-animal relationships and provide cognitive stimulation. Given the importance of trainer/animal ratios in maintaining trained behaviors, a chimpanzee population of 50 should have at least 2 dedicated staff members with this type of expertise. Positive reinforcement training is the only acceptable method of modifying behaviors to facilitate animal care and fulfillment of management needs. Training plans should be developed for each animal, and progress toward achieving established benchmarks should be documented.

Qualifying sanctuaries are directed, in most cases, by the founders who may go back 15 or even 20 years from when their sanctuary opened. Many now heading up sanctuaries come from experience in both laboratories and accredited zoos. Staff includes both employees with animal or human care work in various fields, as well personnel who continue to leave labs or zoos after years of “trying to make a difference.” Behaviorists and veterinarians with extensive great ape behavioral as well as physical knowledge are commonplace at sanctuaries willing and able to accept more chimpanzees. This recommendation should be accepted but extended to meet hiring practices that also recognize a “culture of care” (CoC report page 9). In addition to credentials to work with animals in captivity, it is necessary for all caregivers to hold values and an ethical perspective of respect and compassionate care to meet or exceed the physical, social, and psychological needs of the residents. This is the core requirement for the opportunity and privilege to be a part of the chimpanzee residents’ lives and provide for their well-being.

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA9

All personnel working with chimpanzees must receive training in core institutional values promoting psychological and behavioral well-being of chimpanzees in their care. These institutional core values should be publicly accessible.

Please see comments for EA8, which are repeated here.

Qualifying sanctuaries are directed, in most cases, by the founders who may go back 15 or even 20 years from when their sanctuary opened. Many now heading up sanctuaries come from experience in both laboratories and accredited zoos. Staff includes both employees with animal or human care work in various fields, as well personnel who continue to leave labs or zoos after years of “trying to make a difference.” Behaviorists and veterinarians with extensive great ape behavioral as well as physical knowledge are commonplace at sanctuaries willing and able to accept more chimpanzees. This recommendation should be accepted but extended to meet hiring practices that also recognize a “culture of care” (CoC report page 9). In addition to credentials to work with animals in captivity, it is necessary for all caregivers to hold values and an ethical perspective of respect and compassionate care to meet or exceed the physical, social, and psychological needs of the residents. This is the core requirement for the opportunity and privilege to be a part of the chimpanzee residents’ lives and provide for their well-being.

Ethologically Appropriate Physical and Social Environments:
Recommendation EA10

Chimpanzee records must document detailed individual animal social, physical, behavioral, and psychological requirements and these requirements should be used to design appropriate individualized chimpanzee management in the captive research environment.

As mentioned in our E1A comments, since psychological damage occurs at the individual level, an institutional approach to chimpanzee care is insufficient and as such we strongly support this recommendation for individualized care. Rehabilitation must be individually-based and tailored to specific strategies that serve an individual at a certain time in her/his life. At existing sanctuaries, the quality of relationships with caregivers can often be a prime route to fostering new, important, and more natural and positive relationships with other chimpanzees. Chimpanzees currently in labs may have been isolated from other chimpanzees previously in their lives as pets, in entertainment, or as subjects in cross-fostering and other areas of research. Such individuals will need caregivers to help them rebuild physical and social confidence and competence. Other chimpanzees may have spent time in healthy and functioning social groups and developed healthy social behaviors. As such, one size formulas will not meet the diversity of needs and strengths that chimpanzees retired from research manifest.

For example, Jeannie spent nine years alone in a cage undergoing intensive and invasive research before arriving at Fauna Sanctuary. She was hypervigilant, avoided social interactions with both humans and chimpanzees, and could not tolerate even minor changes in her environment. When anxious, Jeannie would typically exhibit a fear-grimace, scream continuously, rub her head to the point of severe hair loss, repeatedly hit herself on her head or chin, and pull at her eyelids or fingernails. This occurred in situations as when new objects were introduced into her enclosure (e.g., blankets, toys) as part of what was believed to be helpful enrichment – an intervention that had to be adjusted to what she could tolerate and over years built. Her outbursts remained largely unpredictable, easily triggered, and initially difficult or impossible to attenuate. Fauna developed an individualized care plan and goals for Jeannie. Over nine years, her outbursts subsided significantly but only ceased completely toward the last years of her life.

Jeannie’s recovery came in large part from a few one-on-one relationships with attentive humans. Eventually she was able to live for some amounts of times with one or two specific chimpanzees at the sanctuary. At Fauna, chimpanzees are allowed a fission-fusion lifestyle similar to what would be found in the wild. The chimpanzees themselves decide who they will live with, for how long, or even to spend time alone. Efforts were successful. Jeannie came to know how to relax, spent hours basking in the sun, or in her outside enclosure at will. Progress like this occurs only when the sole criteria for well-being is measured by successful amelioration or lessening of psychological, social, or behavioral symptoms. Merely using general criteria for what should typically be provided is insufficient.

Chimpanzee Research Colony Size and Placement: Recommendation SP1

The majority of NIH-owned chimpanzees should be designated for retirement and transferred to the federal sanctuary system. Planning should start immediately to expand current facilities to accommodate these chimpanzees. The federal sanctuary system is the most species-appropriate environment currently available and thus is the preferred environment for long-term housing of chimpanzees no longer required for research.

We are aware that NIH is concerned about sanctuary funding. Retiring chimpanzees to sanctuary can be funded even in the absence of new sources of dollars. While additional funding should be pursued, the lifetime care of federally-owned/supported chimpanzees is neither a new expense nor an expense and responsibility of the federal government that changes because chimpanzees are transferred to sanctuary. Such transfer will hold only positive changes. The costs will be somewhat less and the quality of life for the chimpanzees overwhelmingly better. NIH has awarded grants to labs for some of the same purposes that federal sanctuary would use the money (such as voluntary, noninvasive behavioral research, post-mortem research, facility maintenance, and care of chimpanzees not used in research). The same funds that already support chimpanzees in labs can and must be reallocated to support those same chimpanzees in sanctuary. In fact, a 2012 grant received by New Iberia Research Center states the “award provides funding for the maintenance and transport of the chimpanzees, no funds may be used to conduct animal subjects research.”

Labs have received millions of federal dollars for facility construction and housing for chimpanzees. Between 2000 and 2010 alone, labs received more than $7 million just for construction to add on to their current facilities (which will not go to waste, as materials and supplies purchased with federal dollars can and should be transferred to federal sanctuary). Labs receive millions of dollars annually to house chimpanzees. Such costs would continue even if retirement in sanctuary had not been recommended. Five labs received nearly $28 million in 2008 and $33 million in 2009 from NIH for housing and maintenance type grants (some grants include support for other nonhuman primates in addition to chimpanzees.) Yet labs cannot meet CoC recommendations, which we urge NIH to adopt.

Because some construction would be necessary to meet CoC guidelines, these costs will be accrued whether chimpanzees remain in labs or are transferred to sanctuary. Sanctuaries can provide superior facilities at a portion of the cost of labs. Further, increasing numbers at federal sanctuary allows the facility to meet economy of scale while 100% funding allows them to decrease indirect/fundraising costs for new chimpanzees. Federal dollars would go further in sanctuaries: private donations already meet CHIMP Act matching criteria for existing retirees and more of the funding can be spent directly on the chimpanzees.

Hundreds of chimpanzees who have been subjected to years of laboratory confinement and research deserve to live out the remainder of their lives in sanctuaries expert in providing for their well-being in ethologically appropriate environments that no lab can provide. NIH has liberty and discretion as to where and how to appropriate funds to house chimpanzees. See attachment for more details.

Chimpanzee Research Colony Size and Placement: Recommendation SP2

A small population of chimpanzees should be maintained for future potential research that meets the IOM principles and criteria. Based on an assessment of current research protocols and interviews with content experts and current research facility administrators, this colony is estimated to require approximately 50 chimpanzees. The size and placement of this colony should be reassessed on a frequent basis (approximately every 5 years) to ensure that such a colony is still actually needed and that the animals are not overused.

After systematic review of over 30 years of chimpanzee use in many areas of human disease research, including AIDS and hepatitis, the following conclusions are scientifically supported: their use in research has declined massively; they are rarely used today; they have proven to be poor models in many areas, including HIV/AIDS, and limited models in hepatitis C; their use in cancer and heart research has been almost non-existent and therefore non-essential; there is burgeoning evidence of major and widespread genetic differences showing why chimpanzees are not and never will be models for human research. None of this would be true if chimpanzees were a crucial and indispensable research model.

Thus, all chimpanzees in labs must be retired to sanctuaries. Allowing 50 to remain available would be ethically, fiscally, and scientifically indefensible considering: the use of chimpanzees for biomedical research has declined dramatically and chimpanzees have been determined to be unnecessary in nearly all areas of current biomedical use; a significant number of chimpanzees in labs are elderly, have inadequate medical records, have been used in multiple areas of research, and are suffering physically and psychologically; retirement to sanctuary would be beneficial for the chimpanzees’ well-being; labs cannot meet the ethologically appropriate criteria established by the CoC; and retiring chimpanzees to sanctuary would be economically beneficial to the American public – in tax dollar savings and reallocation of remaining federal funds to more promising areas of research. Given the trajectory from a once-held belief that chimpanzees were a kind of “magic bullet” to study important areas for human research, to rapid and declining use of them, to a now minimal use and no “current need” in most areas of research (the exception was hep C that was actually a 50/50 split vote by the Institute of Medicine’s chimpanzee study group – a vote supported by a systematic review study showing there has been a 50-60% decrease in their use over the past 30 years while the use of non-animal hep C research methods has increased 80-fold over the same period), it would be a weak scientific assumption to posit they would one day resurrect as the sole or most valuable model in the future. Furthermore, scientists from no less than the US Department of Defense and FDA have testified they see no need for future use even in the event of new or emerging threats to the health and well-being of the public. In considering this recommendation to hold 50 for possible future use, we ask that NIH carefully weigh the scientific testimonies presented to the IOM, which did not say there would be a future need for chimpanzees, but rather stated the “committee cannot predict or forecast future need of the chimpanzee animal model.” Therefore, NIH must decide which side of that improbable probability it will place its resources and the well-being of all its chimpanzees.

Chimpanzee Research Colony Size and Placement: Recommendation SP3

This small chimpanzee colony should be maintained at a facility that has the characteristics of ethologically appropriate physical and social environments described in this report. Thus, plans should be made now to ensure that ethologically appropriate physical and social housing conditions will be available within 3 to 5 years. Maintaining the chimpanzee colony at a single facility could be advantageous to minimize costs and maximize management flexibility.

If NIH decides to maintain a colony of 50 chimpanzees, in order to remain consistent with the adoption of ethologically appropriate environment recommendations, those 50 chimpanzees must reside at federal sanctuary under a special provision contract for future potential use. It is not possible for laboratories to meet all of the recommended ethologically appropriate criteria for chimpanzee housing and care. Federal sanctuary is the only appropriate environment. Further, if NIH accepts the recommendation to hold 50 chimpanzees for potential future use, the 50 must come from only the federally-owned population. No privately-owned chimpanzees should be held with federal funding for potential future use, nor should any federal funds go towards maintaining any privately-owned chimpanzees in laboratories.

In addition, recommendation EA9 states, “All personnel working with chimpanzees must receive training in core institutional values promoting psychological and behavioral well-being of chimpanzees in their care. These institutional core values should be publicly accessible.” Current practice has not required public or private laboratories to make available any or all details on how plans for the psychological and behavioral well-being of primates are developed, met, and reviewed. As it stands, USDA allows a simple description of “plans” to meet and enhance the psychological well being of primates, with no established NIH or USDA definition of what it means to meet such psychological criteria. This practice has been responsible for psychological damage to hundreds of individual chimpanzees, and has been allowed to continue even after specific AWA requirements for that undefined “psychological well-being” were enacted. Sanctuaries, however, define, meet, and allow witness to how successful they have been in meeting the psychological, social, and physical needs of chimpanzees. NIH should acknowledge and reward sanctuaries for doing exemplary work for both federally-owned chimpanzees and others who were used in research that was federally funded.

Recommendation EA10 states, “Chimpanzee records must document detailed individual animal social, physical, behavioral, and psychological requirements and these requirements should be used to design appropriate individualized chimpanzee management in the captive research environment.” These records – even if held in private labs supported by federal funds – must be made publicly accessible otherwise this recommendation is too easily circumvented with devastating consequences to chimpanzees.

Chimpanzee Research Colony Size and Placement: Recommendation SP4

The demographic constitution of this small chimpanzee colony is important to maximize its utility for research. Ideally, the colony should be age and sex stratified, have an approximately 50:50 sex ratio, and be composed primarily of animals that are healthy and younger than 30 years. At least half of this population should be physiologically naïve to infection (e.g., hepatitis or HIV). When this colony is formed, best practices should be used for maintaining current social groupings, whenever possible, to minimize adverse stress.

In addition to the comments made in SP3, the population, if held, must not include any chimpanzees with previous research histories as that is a confounding variable for any possible future need for a “new or emerging” disease; must be allowed to remain with existing family or friends whose status might be “retired” to avoid the psychological impact of separation of long-standing bonds; must be provided for according to all other adopted CoC recommendations; and must not be allowed to breed and all measures taken to avoid any accidental breeding. Should new births add to the 50 number, then appropriate measures will be taken to allow the offspring to remain with their family and marginal members of the group of 50 should be retired so that at no time shall the number exceed 50. No private labs should be allowed to receive federal dollars to maintain this population as they cannot meet CoC recommended criteria. The public must be allowed open access to information on these 50 chimpanzees and any pending suggested research use. If a research protocol is proposed by a private lab, the general area of research, length of use, and housing conditions of the chimpanzees during the research protocol must be made available under FOIA rather than redacted as proprietary information. All aspects of the protocol must meet the conditions upon which the federal government allows federally-owned or supported chimpanzees to be used. NIH must require that the above information be publically available as a condition for private use of the chimpanzees and/or any other financial support of the protocol. Further, the private lab must be responsible for any and all costs to transfer the chimpanzees to sanctuary and their lifetime care for their post-protocol retirement.  

Chimpanzee Research Colony Size and Placement: Recommendation SP5

The NIH should review its funding priorities for comparative behavioral, cognitive, and genomics studies using chimpanzees. The NIH should consider targeting funding for low-burden projects that can be conducted in nontraditional research settings that can maintain ethologically appropriate environments or projects that use materials collected during routine veterinary examinations.

Because the CHIMP Act allows for noninvasive behavioral studies and requires that “necropsy reports on chimpanzees in the sanctuary system [be made] available on a reasonable basis to persons who conduct biomedical or behavioral research,” chimpanzees retired to federal sanctuary can be considered a research resource. Thus, federal sanctuary should receive the 100% funding currently awarded to labs. Federal sanctuary can allow chimpanzees to be used, but only for noninvasive behavioral or post-mortem research. As an example of prior funding for behavioral research that may be eligible to be performed in federal sanctuary, $99,000 was awarded to Georgia State University (Grant 5P01HD038051, 2000-2007) to “assess how well chimpanzees can recall and report objects, locations, and events they witnessed hours or days earlier in a large-scale environment.” As an example of prior funding for post-mortem research, $184,724 was awarded to Emory University (Grant 5P51RR000165) to use chimpanzees in “identifying differences in gene and protein expression…using unfixed tissue samples from short post-mortem time.” See attachment for more examples.

A portion of current and prior grant money awarded to labs is allocated to veterinary care, facility maintenance, husbandry, behavioral management, and enrichment and behavioral studies. Because these same activities are conducted and/or allowable at federal sanctuary, the funding currently provided to labs under housing and maintenance-type grants should qualify for transfer to federal sanctuary. For example, a grant awarded in August 2012 to Texas Biomed for over $523,000 acknowledged in its accompanying grant progress report that the program was strictly maintaining the chimpanzees and no research was being conducted (Grant 8U42OD011184-02). Another active grant, 3U42OD011184-02S2, notes funds for “routine husbandry, high quality behavioral management and enrichment are critical.” This grant specifically allocates money for maintaining “a stable, healthy, and well defined population of chimpanzees,” and behavioral services which include socialization, animal training, environmental enrichment, behavioral management, and staff training.

Active grant 8U42OD011197-12 for $2,064,160 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center has primary objectives of “colony care and maintenance,” and “provision of the infrastructure needed to conduct studies.” The type of studies is not specified, i.e. behavioral studies could be included. At the same facility (2003 through 2010), NIH awarded $27,143,626 (Grant 2U24RR015090) specifically for “the provision of animal husbandry and health (veterinary) care, provision and maintenance of physical facilities, allocation of animals, and generation of income.” Funds were allocated for studies on the value of environmental enrichment, which explored positive reinforcement training, presentation medium, housing types, nesting materials, response to novelty, control over enrichment, etc.

Chimpanzee Research Colony Size and Placement: Recommendation SP6

The NIH should not support any long-term maintenance of chimpanzees intended for research on new, emerging, or reemerging diseases in animal biosafety level 2 or greater biocontainment-level facilities.

We strongly agree with this recommendation. Joseph Bielitzki’s (DVM, MS, and former Program Manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) IOM testimony asserted what too few have considered carefully: the management nightmare of trying to house chimpanzees in biosafety level containment labs. Concerns include not only managing internal environments, including the unfeasible costs to do so, but more importantly managing escapes of chimpanzees infected with viruses deadly to humans. The likelihood of chimpanzee use leading to an efficacious vaccine for viruses of this nature is slim and could not mitigate the disastrous effects of the escape of an infected chimpanzee. Further, Bielitzki’s testimony attests to the unrealistic timeline that attempting to develop a vaccine using a chimpanzee model, even if otherwise feasible, would present. Essentially, as a government expert, his testimony minimizes if not eliminates all other hypothetical arguments regarding future need for chimpanzees in biocontainment facilities engaged in research to meet emergency needs of the U.S. human population. The doomsday scenario used by some to argue a need for “future potential research” is neither scientifically nor ethically defensible.

Chimpanzee Research Colony Size and Placement: Recommendation SP7

The NIH should not, on its own, revitalize breeding strategies to derive a population of chimpanzees for any research, including for new, emerging, or reemerging disease research.

We strongly agree with this for ethical, economic, and scientific reasons. Revitalizing breeding strategies would continue to waste limited research dollars. The current NIH administration has admirably taken the lead on responsibility for finally ending decades-long waste of taxpayer dollars and needless chimpanzee suffering. We applaud those efforts and strongly agree with this recommendation, and see no reason to undermine current NIH efforts with any possibility for continued federal breeding or federal funding for private breeding.

Chimpanzee Research Colony Size and Placement: Recommendation SP8

The NIH should collaborate with other federal agencies (i.e., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration) and departments (i.e., Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security) when considering any future plan for placement, maintenance, and use of chimpanzees in research in response to a new, emerging, or reemerging disease that could represent a national security risk to the United States.

It is imperative to remember that experts testified to the IOM that chimpanzees would be of little to no use in responding to national security risks. Joseph Bielitzki (DVM, MS, and former Program Manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) opined to the IOM that chimpanzees were “probably not” critical to U.S. health security. He cited the many years it takes to develop a vaccine, and that a health emergency would be over before anything could be developed, even with the use of chimpanzees. “Even for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, the quickest to market took around 6 months, by which time the epidemic was over and the problem gone.” He cited maintenance costs for chimpanzees, at approximately half a million dollars per chimpanzee for lifetime care. James Swearengen, the Director of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, told the IOM that he was “not aware of any historical or current use of chimpanzees in the U.S. in biodefense/for the Department of Defense,” and that he did not envision any future speculative need. Further addressing the need for chimpanzees to bring drugs to market, David Jacobson-Kram, PhD, of the Food and Drug Administration testified that if chimpanzee data were no longer available, this would have “no discernible effect” on adequate and timely review of applications. Thus, the weight of key government agencies attests to the improbable need for future chimpanzee use. As such, holding any for such possible but highly improbable need contradicts the testimony of several experts upon which the American public places its trust.

Chimpanzee Research Colony Size and Placement: Recommendation SP9

In light of evidence suggesting that research involving chimpanzees has rarely accelerated new discoveries or the advancement of human health for infectious diseases, with a few notable exceptions such as the hepatitis viruses, the NIH should emphasize the development and refinement of other approaches, especially alternative animal models (e.g., genetically altered mice), for research on new, emerging, and reemerging diseases.

We agree that funding modern, promising alternatives to research on chimpanzees is a better use of limited research funds, but we disagree with emphasizing funding different animal models. In 1986, NIH launched an initiative to breed chimpanzees that were thought to be useful, if not ideal, models for AIDS research. However, even the species whose DNA is most similar to humans, the chimpanzee, turned out not to be a “suitable” model for such research, leaving the federal government with “a surplus of several hundred chimpanzees that are no longer useful in medical research” that were being “warehoused in expensive federally funded research laboratory facilities” (Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 2000 at 1-2).

Chimpanzees are not the only animal model that has resulted in limited research dollars being diverted from more promising non-animal research methods. It is critical to note and repeat for example that even within the one area of hepatitis C research the use of alternatives shows an 80-fold increase over the past 30 years. Mouse models also have been shown to be a limited, even wasteful, use of federal research dollars. A recent study showed nearly 150 drugs developed and tested on mice for use with human patients with sepsis, the leading cause of death in intensive care units, have failed. There was no correlation between the genetic responses of mice and those of humans. No matter how similar human and animal genes may be structurally, the regulatory processes vary to produce insurmountably different expression scenarios. The study of Alzheimer’s disease is a hallmark example of the failure of genetically modified (GM) mice, which has resulted in ineffective drugs and failed clinical trials due to the mouse version of Alzheimer’s being emphatically different from humans. Scientists recognize the severe limitations of GM mice and a need for a new direction. Rather than replacing chimpanzee use with that of other animals, the current scientific climate affords NIH new opportunities to explore and invest federal dollars in vast and truly promising areas of non-animal research.

Review Process: Recommendation RP1

The NIH should replace the Interagency Animal Models Committee with an independent Oversight Committee for Proposals Using Chimpanzees in NIH-supported Research (Oversight Committee) to advise on the proposed use of chimpanzees in research. The current Interagency Animal Models Committee is not considered independent from other individuals and bodies that review and approve grant applications to the NIH, contains no members of the public, and thus does not fully meet the spirit of the IOM principles and criteria.

We strongly agree with this recommendation. However, we would add that this independent oversight committee include scientists who are committed to and expert in alternatives and have studied the limitations of chimpanzee use rather than those with vested financial interest in promoting chimpanzees as a viable model. Any laboratory director or scientist who stands to fiscally benefit from the protocol being accepted and funded must be deemed a conflict of interest and not sit on such an oversight committee. Further, as did the IOM, a bioethicist (preferably with the relevant and extensive experience of having served on the chimpanzee study groups for the IOM committee or CoC itself) should be appointed, as he or she would bring needed expertise as to the benefit versus cost discussion.

Review Process: Recommendation RP2

The Oversight Committee should be separate from extramural initial review groups, intramural scientific program personnel, and Institute or Center directors. In addition, the Oversight Committee’s reviews should take place after the standard reviews and approvals by these entities. The Oversight Committee’s reviews will focus on whether the proposed research is consistent with the IOM principles and criteria for the use of chimpanzees in research.

We strongly agree with this recommendation.

Review Process: Recommendation RP3

The Oversight Committee should be comprised of individuals with the specific scientific, biomedical, and behavioral expertise needed to properly evaluate whether a grant, intramural program, contract, or other award mechanism supporting research using chimpanzees complies with the IOM principles and criteria.

We strongly agree with this recommendation. We also request that a representative of an animal protection organization with necessary expertise specifically in the use of chimpanzees be a member of the Oversight Committee.

Review Process: Recommendation RP4

Investigators seeking NIH funding to conduct research using chimpanzees must explain in their application how their proposed research complies with the IOM principles and criteria. This supplemental information must address all of the questions posed in the decision-making algorithm in this report and provide sufficient detail for consideration by the Oversight Committee. This information is in addition to the vertebrate animal section and/or applicable animal study protocol. The NIH might wish to develop a form or other suggested template for investigators to use for this purpose.

We strongly agree with this recommendation.

Review Process: Recommendation RP5

To ensure that the scientific use of chimpanzees is justified, the animal numbers and group sizes must be statistically justified before the NIH approves any proposed research project involving the use of chimpanzees.

Statistical justification must be based on the smallest number of individuals possible being used. Further, the length of study and harm to any chimpanzees used should be explicitly discussed in the proposal. As in guidelines for the use of humans in research, so too should there be criteria that allows chimpanzees to withdraw or be withdrawn from a protocol if he/she is unable to tolerate the research. This is not a new concept as some labs, specifically LEMSIP for example, based retirement criteria on which chimpanzees, in the words of the lab’s veterinarian, “could simply not tolerate further research use.” Such necessity to terminate their use must include harm and deterioration to their physical and/or psychological well-being. Further, it must be reiterated that in no case should studies whose endpoint is death or euthanasia be approved and that after one protocol use, the chimpanzee be permanently retired and not made available for multiple use.

Review Process: Recommendation RP6

Investigators need not include supplemental information on chimpanzee use for proposals involving the following, and these proposals will be exempt from Oversight Committee review:

• The use of any biomaterials, including pathological specimens, collected and/or stored prior to submission of the research proposal, or as part of a research grant or contract that has undergone Oversight Committee review and approval, or as part of regular veterinary (health) examinations;
• Other observational or non-interventional studies, such as behavioral observations in the wild that do not result in contact or otherwise interfere with the chimpanzees being observed; or
• Noninvasive collection of samples from the wild in a manner that does not result in contact or otherwise interfere with the chimpanzees during the collection.

We agree with this recommendation.

Review Process: Recommendation RP7

The Oversight Committee review should take place after the Center or Institute director approves a proposal so that the key elements of the review are publicly accessible to the extent allowable by federal regulations. The Oversight Committee should review all requests for grants, contracts, intramural projects, and third-party projects rather than establishing a separate review process for each mechanism. Funding of an award for research involving the use of chimpanzees that has received an Institute or Center director’s approval will be conditional and subject to the subsequent evaluation by the Oversight Committee.

We strongly agree with this recommendation. The addition of a process to not allow private labs to withhold information about proposed NIH-funded research must be considered and imposed as criteria for grant awards and access to these remaining federal research chimpanzees. Withholding information from the public can contribute to negative consequences for chimpanzees in laboratories and fosters a culture of distrust regarding what is happening to animals in U.S. labs, a vital and growing concern of the American public. Current practice has not required public or private laboratories to make public any or all details on how plans for the psychological and behavioral well-being of primates are developed, implemented, and reviewed. As it stands, USDA allows a simple description of “plans” to provide for and enhance the psychological well-being of primates, with no established NIH or USDA definition of what it means to meet such psychological criteria. This practice has been responsible for the psychological damage of hundreds of individual chimpanzees, and has been allowed to continue even after specific AWA requirements for that undefined “psychological well-being” were enacted. Further, ample studies have documented how report of pain and distress levels for animals used in research have been inaccurate and minimize what the animal actually suffers. Thus, disclosure of all levels of pain, distress, and suffering must be made available and subject to challenge by veterinarians specifically experienced in chimpanzee care, including but not limited to those from NAPSA sanctuaries.

Review Process: Recommendation RP8

The Oversight Committee will base its reviews on the supplemental information provided by investigators on how the proposed research complies with the IOM principles and criteria and all relevant documents (including animal study protocols and grant applications) required to make informed determinations for all funding requests (grants, contracts, and intramural projects) and other requests to use chimpanzees (e.g., third-party projects).

We agree with this recommendation.

Review Process: Recommendation RP9

The Oversight Committee will determine whether each application meets or does not meet the IOM principles and criteria based on the votes of a majority of all voting members. At its members’ discretion, the Oversight Committee may vote on whether different components or parts of an application meet or do not meet the IOM principles and criteria.

We strongly agree with this recommendation. If different parts of an application do not meet the IOM principles and criteria, the Oversight Committee must have the authority to restrict all funding until such sections are brought into compliance.

Review of Currently Active NIH-Supported Research Using Chimpanzees

Please provide comments on the outcomes or recommendations provided in Section 4 of the Working Group’s report.

The grant names and numbers of the 30 research projects reviewed in Section 4 should be made publicly available as soon as possible. Without access to such information we cannot comment on the specific nature of the studies in question. As such, we ask that a specific and new public comment period on those studies be assured for not less than 30 days following the identification of those studies.

Biomedical research: We support the immediate termination of the 6 projects referred to in Section 4. It is assumed the 3 conditionally approved projects do not currently meet the CoC’s ethologically appropriate criteria, and should therefore not be renewed in the next upcoming project period unless the projects can meet all CoC criteria.

Comparative genomics and behavioral research: No projects should be renewed in the next upcoming project period unless they can be performed in sanctuary, meeting federal sanctuary’s requirements for noninvasive behavioral or post-mortem studies. When noninvasive research is a form of enrichment for chimpanzees, we support it. It can provide needed funding for their care via NIH grants. The research, however, must adhere to the same standards of care as research on humans in which participation is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any point. Such redirecting of funding for any current or future research in these areas will go a long way in helping NIH meet its obligation for the lifetime care of its chimpanzees as well as its obligation to federal sanctuary. There is no reason, scientifically or fiscally, to continue status quo funding of private labs for chimpanzee research.

Colony housing and care: As discussed in our comments for SP5, active grant project funding related to the housing and maintenance of chimpanzees in laboratories, regardless of use in research protocols, can and should be transferred immediately to federal sanctuary. This will result in cost savings for taxpayers, improved physical and psychological well-being of chimpanzees, and NIH’s ability to redirect savings to more promising non-animal research studies. Most recently, NIH has demonstrated that it can and will fund labs for construction of facilities, transfer of chimpanzees, and housing and maintenance of chimpanzees who are not eligible for use in research. The logical and fiscal appropriateness of NIH deciding to transfer all such funding is obvious to stakeholders in chimpanzee well-being and tax dollar use. If NIH does not adopt such a redirection of its grants, then a full explanation for why private labs will continue to benefit from tax dollars to house and maintain chimpanzees – at greater cost and less quality of life for the chimpanzees – rather than our federal sanctuary now benefiting from such funding, would be asked for and reasonably expected. That said, we remain optimistic this is an identified avenue for funding that NIH is committed to realizing.

Overall Comments

Provide input on any other issues not already covered by the comments you provided above.

NIH has been paying for chimpanzee care even in absence of their research use for years. The attached document outlines avenues for NIH to fund the retirement of chimpanzees. Only sanctuaries can provide the ethologically appropriate environments described in the CoC report. Thus, if NIH decides to maintain a colony of 50 chimpanzees, they must reside at federal sanctuary under a special provision contract. These 50 chimpanzees should come from the federally-owned population, and no federal funds should go towards maintaining privately-owned chimpanzees in labs.

The CoC’s report raises additional questions, including:

If private sanctuaries are willing and allowed to receive federally retired chimpanzees, will they receive 100% federal funding?

Is NIH responsible for 75% of care funding if chimpanzees are retired outside of Chimp Haven and/or outside of the CHIMP Act, or full 100% as NIH intended in its initial decision to transfer chimpanzees deemed ineligible for biomedical research from New Iberia Research Center to Texas Biomedical Research Institute?

The CoC report states, “All chimpanzee experiments done in the last 20 years have been survival experiments…funding for these experiments has included the cost of lifetime care." Please clarify what is meant by “funding…included the cost of lifetime care.” Do funds for lifetime care go beyond the grant periods, or only provide for care during the protocol?

Has the NIH grant to TX Biomed for the transfer of 111 chimpanzees now sent to Chimp Haven been transferred to Chimp Haven? Has NIH redirected the funding given NIH’s fiscal crisis? If TX Biomed was allowed to keep the funding, what was the reasoning behind the decision?

Does NIH plan to transfer lab housing and materials (e.g. chimp-gauge steel, structures, etc.) to sanctuary since they are transferable and NIH, to our knowledge, required contractors to provide Primadomes that were “re-locatable?”

If adopted, will the CoC recommendations apply to NIH-supported chimpanzees? Since NIH has supported privately-owned chimpanzees in labs even though they were not being used in research, will NIH continue to support these chimpanzees if they are sent to sanctuary?

Thank you for this opportunity to be a part of this important issue in U.S. research. We believe sanctuary is the only appropriate environment for retired chimpanzees. The signatories hold expertise in providing for chimpanzee lifetime care, providing funding for that care, and/or reasons why chimpanzees must no longer be used in research and retired. We are happy to provide any information that can help this process move forward.

We applaud NIH’s vision in ending chimpanzee research. We believe it will benefit not only chimpanzees, but also future research that can more effectively and efficiently help humans. Ending chimpanzee research is a necessary step in NIH continuing to realize its mission to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce the burdens of illness and disability.

Co-Signers:

New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS)
Fauna Foundation Sanctuary
Primate Rescue Center
Chimps, Inc.

Your “NIH advised to retire most research chimps” article (March 15, 2013) gave credence to lab director Christian Abee’s position that chimpanzees are necessary for research. It failed to note labs have a vested interest in the status quo of warehousing chimpanzees, even if not in active research. Nor did it mention that the public should expect AVMA to support retiring all federally owned chimpanzees because there is lack of scientific need for them – as per the Institute of Medicine and NIH’s Council of Councils – and because the veterinary oath requires “protection of animal health and welfare.” It was also not mentioned that a large, growing number of veterinarians support ending this wasteful, ineffective, and inhumane practice.

Veterinarians are employed at chimpanzee sanctuaries throughout the U.S., and there will be expanding need to care for retired chimpanzees. Dr. Abee’s argument that retirement to sanctuary wastes federal dollars echoes a familiar lab agenda: keep dollars in labs by keeping chimpanzees in labs. A just society cannot put the financial interests of laboratories disguised in unsubstantiated rhetoric before the health and humane interests of chimpanzees and superior science. 

Chimpanzees have languished in laboratories for decades. Many have few years of life left. All deserve retirement to the comfort only sanctuary can provide. AVMA should, with a strong voice, support recommendations to NIH to retire chimpanzees. AVMA’s legal responsibility for and moral obligation to the well-being of animals can, in this case, only be realized if its position supports the well-being of these chimpanzees.

A. Construction Funding

Construction costs will be accrued whether the chimpanzees remain in laboratories or are transferred to sanctuary. No existing laboratories meet the standards set by the CoC recommendations regarding ethologically appropriate environments. In a 2011 letter to Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, chair of the Institute of Medicine committee that assessed the necessity of chimpanzees in research, Dr. Thomas Butler, Chimp Haven Board of Directors Acting Chairperson and Retired Chairman of the Department of Laboratory Animal Medicine and director of the chimpanzee colony at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, outlined differences between laboratories and sanctuaries.

In terms of space available, Chimp Haven offers much more indoor and outdoor space than any laboratory. The smallest enclosures at Chimp Haven are generally larger than the standard housing unit at laboratories. The largest enclosures at Chimp Haven are measured in acres. All chimpanzee groups at CH have access to multiple indoor housing areas. Space is of critical importance to maintain chimpanzees in appropriate social groups – large multi-male, multi-female groups…Almost all of our outdoor enclosures have natural ground covering, not cement or gravel, to provide a comfortable substrate. (Most laboratory chimpanzees live on cement or caging.) All indoor housing areas include nesting material at all times (e.g., hay blankets, pine straw) to encourage comfortable resting and nesting – a very important species-typical behavior. (Most laboratory chimpanzees have no access to nesting material.) Additionally, Chimp Haven’s facility includes shelves, hammocks and multiple structures to provide complexity and use of three dimensional space.¹

Laboratories would require extensive construction costs at federal expense to upgrade their facilities to meet the CoC recommendations. Federal dollars would be better spent on construction funding to continue expansion and building at the federal sanctuary, which, according to the CoC, “is the most species-appropriate environment currently available and thus is the preferred environment for long-term housing of chimpanzees no longer required for research,” or at other private qualifying sanctuaries whose sole purpose is to provide lifetime care for chimpanzees than to give additional money for construction to laboratories. Laboratories’ sole purpose is to do research, something for which both the Institute of Medicine and the CoC see no essential current need and limited future need, if any. Federal dollars spent would go further in sanctuaries than in laboratories and have more immediate implications for chimpanzee well-being. The Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection (CHIMP) Act requires that at least 10% of construction costs come from non-federal contributions, whereas 100% of construction costs at laboratories have been funded by the federal government, even in the absence of active protocol use, to house and maintain a population of chimpanzees for possible research use. The consistent and accelerating decrease in the need for and use of chimpanzees suggests that NIH dollars have been granted to laboratories to hold, at great taxpayer expense, a research resource that was not being used. For example, in fiscal year 2011, of the more than 94,000 active projects sponsored by NIH, only 53 used chimpanzees (0.056%).² Even the two areas of historic wide use have significantly declined. The number of HIV/AIDS related chimpanzee studies has dropped 90% in the last decade, and the use of alternatives in hepatitis C research for the past 30 years shows an 80-fold increase.³    

Following passage of the 2000 CHIMP Act which mandated that chimpanzees “no longer needed” be retired and accepted into a federal sanctuary system, in 2001 NIH issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to construct and operate the National Chimpanzee Sanctuary System and called for immediate construction to house a minimum of 200 chimpanzees already identified for retirement. The RFP included language for expansion to 900 chimpanzees possibly using subcontractors or multiple sites. In response, Chimp Haven’s contract proposal to this Request for Proposals described plans and a willingness to care for up to 900 chimpanzees through a subcontracting approach. As of 2013, Chimp Haven has made it clear that, with funding, it could care for up to 425 chimpanzees at its current location alone.

While funding for expansion at Chimp Haven to meet their capacity has not been granted, NIH has recently funded laboratories for continuing maintenance and construction of their facilities to house chimpanzees. Between 2000 and 2010 alone, laboratories received more than $7 million for 100% of construction costs to add on to their current facilities (Appendix A). The NIH Grants Policy states, “NIH construction awards generally require that a facility be used for biomedical or behavioral research as long as needed for that purpose. NIH defines this period as 20 years from the date of beneficial occupancy unless another period is prescribed by statute…If, during the required usage period, the facility is no longer used for the original intended purpose and NIH did not provide prior approval for an alternate use, NIH may recover its share.”⁴ The policy further states, “The usage obligation may also be transferred to another facility with the prior approval of NIH. If approved, the remaining usage obligation shall be released from the original facility constructed with grant funds and transferred to the new facility.” Therefore, construction elements previously awarded to laboratories are transferable to federal sanctuary with NIH approval. Further, it must be noted that Chimp Haven does allow research at its facility provided it meets IACUC approval. As such, it is and will continue to be an option for non-invasive behavioral research as well as post-mortem studies. This should have made it eligible for 100% funding, as NIH awards labs.

Supplies and equipment (such as steel, wire, perches, ropes and swings, feeding containers, medical supplies and equipment), enrichment structures, cages, Primadomes^TM, and other materials which were purchased with NIH funding, can and should be transferred to the federal sanctuary or private qualifying sanctuaries to offset costs to meet the demand for more sanctuary space. According to Primadome supplier Brandes Brothers Constructors, Inc., the NIH has actually required its Primadomes to be made “relocatable.” Transferring existing federally purchased Primadomes would avoid an estimated $70,000 cost for each one. For example, in 2002, the Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research was awarded Grant 1G20RR016211-01, “Chimpanzee Area Alterations and Renovations,” that allocated roughly $161,000 specifically for the purchase and assembly of Primadomes. Between 2002 and 2006, the New Iberia Research Center was awarded Grant 1C06RR016483-01, “Expansion of NIH Chimpanzee Holding Facility,” that allocated $863,576 for the construction of eight Primadomes.⁵ These Primadomes should now be transferred to federal sanctuary to offset further construction costs.

While federal and qualifying sanctuaries provide paradigmatic, open, and expansive living space for its chimpanzees, the Primadomes could serve as transitional housing for chimpanzees, housing for ill or physically debilitated residents, or for residents with special needs for whom large areas or groups cannot provide for their psychological and or physical well-being. Eliminating costs to provide for such necessities, by definition, allows new dollars to go further in expanding the sanctuaries’ more typical environments of large open spaces. There is already precedence for the feasibility of transferring materials for enclosures, including when a private facility, the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), transferred supplies and materials for caging to be used for 109 chimpanzees who were transferred to sanctuary in one of the first and at the time largest retirement of chimpanzees from research.

NIH also has awarded funding to laboratories looking to expand housing in order to take in more chimpanzees from other facilities. From 2002 through 2006, the New Iberia Research Center was awarded just under $2 million (Grant 1C06RR016483-01, “Expansion of NIH Chimpanzee Holding Facilities”) to “provide for housing an additional 80 to 100 adult chimpanzees which are being held at other institutions.” In another example involving the transfer of chimpanzees from Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF) to Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Grant 1U42RR032577-01 for the budget period of September 2011 through July 2012), NIH covered costs of “the dismantling of four Primadomes and several large playgrounds at APF and their transport to San Antonio [Texas Biomedical Research Institute], together with transportation, installation, and calibration of all NCRR-owned equipment that is currently at APF.”

NIH demonstrated that it would pay for laboratory construction and equipment costs for chimpanzees no longer eligible for use in research in a September 2012 grant awarded to Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Grant 3U42OD011184-02S2 Revised, for the budget period of September 2012 through July 2013 for nearly $2.7 million). This grant provided funding for equipment for the transferred chimpanzees (such as blood pressure monitors, mobile lift tables, stretchers, a dental unit, an I-Stat machine, and ECG machine, an anesthesia machine, a camera system, etc.) in the amount of nearly $130,000, for supplies and medicine for the transferred chimpanzees at an additional $67,000, and for alterations and renovations for the facility at over $15,000. Salaries, fringe benefits, personnel costs, consultant services, travel costs, “other” costs, and indirect costs comprised the remainder of the $2.7 million grant.

B. Transfer Funding

The NIH has awarded grants for the transfer of chimpanzees between laboratories. Such grants were intended and utilized for the same purposes as would be needed for the transfer of chimpanzees from laboratories to federal or private qualifying sanctuaries. For example, Texas Biomedical Research Institute was awarded Grant 1U42RR032577-01, for a total of $471,185 and a cumulative total of $19,117,453 for the project period September 2011 through July 2016, to transfer chimpanzees from APF to Texas Biomedical Research Institute. The budget for transfer included “habituating the animals to their new environment, monitoring their behavior, and resolving problems that arise,” as well as $9,000 in pre-transfer funds to travel between APF and Texas Biomedical Research Institute “for the purposes of physically examining chimpanzees and health records prior to relocation, consulting with APF staff in regard to characteristics of individual chimpanzees and social groups, and examining and planning the removal and transportation of outdoor cages as well as major equipment.” Post-transfer budget included funding for salaries, “routine health checks…, non-research related pathology services, medicines and drugs, special care required for sick or injured animals, and completed necropsies of chimpanzees that die or are euthanized for health reasons.” It must be noted that not all of the chimpanzees who were transferred, if any, were subsequently used in active research protocols.

In late 2012, Texas Biomedical Research Institute was awarded grant 3U42OD011184-02S2, “NIH-Owned Chimpanzee Research Resource at the SNPRC,” which provided for both the husbandry and transfer of 111 NIH-owned chimpanzees from the New Iberia Research Center for housing purposes, specifically not to be used for research. The grant abstract states, “The sole specific aim of this supplement over the next year is to maintain a stable, healthy, and well defined population of chimpanzees and to coordinate the relocation of chimpanzees from the New Iberia Research Center to the Texas Biomedical Research Institute.” The budget included funds for husbandry, behavioral management, socialization, enrichment, and staff training. However, this planned transfer of 111 chimpanzees was cancelled, and they are instead in the process of transferring to federal sanctuary, Chimp Haven, though funds for construction at Texas Biomedical Research Institute were not or have not yet been transferred to Chimp Haven to be used for the same purposes.

Finally, it must be noted that given the current Congressional, public, scientific, and NIH interest in retiring chimpanzees and the financial responsibility for NIH to do so, none of the previous funds allocated to building or caring for chimpanzees in labs should be allowed to be transferred to other uses. There is a fiscal demand to provide housing for chimpanzees of significant, even if yet to be determined, numbers of federally-owned or supported chimpanzees. Recuperating equipment, supplies, and materials will go a long way in meeting new construction, equipment, and supplies costs in sanctuary. In situ retirement is not and should not be an option as labs cannot meet the criteria set forth by the CoC. Rather, only sanctuary retirement should be considered as providing lifetime care for elderly, sickly, as well as young and healthy chimpanzees retired from research as is their mandated mission.

C. Lifetime Care Funding

Prohibiting euthanasia as a management tool, the CHIMP Act directs the Secretary to “reserve” funding for the “operation (and establishment, as applicable)” of the sanctuary system, but then says the Secretary cannot reserve more than $30 million for this purpose. §287a-3a(g)(1). However, this provision does not say that Health and Human Services (HHS) or NIH is prohibited from spending more than this amount on sanctuaries nor does the cap release NIH from its mandated responsibility for retiring and providing lifetime care. There is an argument within the parameters of the CHIMP Act’s language that given HHS’s duty under the Act to “provide for the establishment and operation…of a system to provide for the lifetime care of [surplus] chimps,” §287a-3a(a) that NIH is required to find any additional funding that is needed to care for chimpanzees no longer needed for research.

NIH is responsible for the lifetime care of the chimpanzees⁶,  and thus will be paying for their housing and maintenance whether they are kept in laboratories or in sanctuaries. Instead of providing the funds for the chimpanzees’ care to laboratories, NIH has or needs to seek the authority to transfer such funding, in full, to the federal sanctuary. Chimp Haven’s 10-year contract (2002-2012) to both establish and maintain a sanctuary was for $22,279,058. This is less than the amount that New Iberia Research Center, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, MD Anderson, Yerkes, and APF have received in a single year. These facilities received nearly $28 million in 2008 and $33 million in 2009 from NIH for housing and maintenance type grants.⁷ The vast majority of the chimpanzees it funded were not being used in nor needed for research. To further illustrate the discretion NIH has in allocating funds it can be noted that Chimp Haven’s contract was nearly half of the amount Charles River Laboratories received in a 10-year contract to house and maintain chimpanzees at APF (see Section 3 below) – the overwhelming majority of whom were not used in research. Further, those few used in research were transferred to other facilities as required in an agreement between NIH and the U.S. Air Force, actually driving up the per capita award as APF population numbers decreased while funding did not.

In addition to the transfer of new housing and maintenance grants from laboratories to federal or private qualifying sanctuary, if chimpanzees are transferred during a current grant, unobligated funds from the ongoing grant to the laboratory can be transferred to sanctuary. Housing and maintenance grants require recipients to inform NIH of unobligated funds remaining from a grant, as carry-over of an unobligated balance is not automatic.⁸ Though NIH could with prior request allow such funds to be transferred to another project, such permission would be negligent in the face of NIH’s fiscal crisis for construction and housing and maintenance dollars for the lifetime care of chimpanzees as mandated by both the CHIMP Act and, if adopted, by the CoC Working Group’s recommendations, which passed in a 13 to 0 vote by the CoC.

Not only would transferring chimpanzees in laboratories to sanctuaries be in line with the CoC recommendations, but the same funding would provide more money directly for the care of the chimpanzees. First, for those chimpanzees retired under the CHIMP Act, 25% of expenses associated with the operation of the federal sanctuary must be provided by non-federal private contributions, yet funding of laboratories has not had nor currently has any such requirement with the federal government covering 100% of housing and maintenance expenses in laboratories. As evident by a previous NIH decision on September 21, 2012 to send chimpanzees “permanently ineligible for research” from the New Iberia Research Center to Texas Biomedical Research Institute's Southwest National Primate Research Center, NIH already has the authority to grant all new chimpanzees retired under the recommendations of the CoC 100% of costs to fulfill its obligation and alleviate the burden to sanctuaries, as it has for labs, of raising additional matching funds. With such large numbers of chimpanzees in need of care for decades forward, it is not only a position allowable by NIH’s own mandates (given their status as “retired” from biomedical research yet available for further non-invasive behavioral and/or post-mortem research and thus continuing to be a “research resource”) but also one that is ethical and fully responsible. Funding short of that puts undue burden on the ability of other private sanctuaries to continue to raise 100% of their funds from the public for the care of abandoned, retired, and abused chimpanzees.

The current crisis in numbers of unneeded chimpanzees for research is not a new problem. NIH has in fact been paying for their care even in absence of their use for many years. The roots of this long standing financial responsibility come from past NIH decisions and overzealous federally funded breeding. NIH’s current trajectory is taking full responsibility for its chimpanzees – for both scientific (they are not a viable biomedical research resource) and ethical (reiterating its commitment for their lifetime care) reasons. NIH’s current and laudable position must be backed by funding that does not unfairly share the fiscal burden with sanctuaries willing and able to be part of the solution for NIH. Further, NIH funds provided to laboratories are subject to a much higher indirect cost rate than the indirect costs of either federal or private qualifying sanctuaries, as discussed below in Section C.4. As such, every federal dollar granted to federal or a private qualifying sanctuary goes further in direct chimpanzee care. Finally, for those chimpanzees provided 100% costs, federal or private qualifying sanctuaries would have no accompanying fundraising expenses thus driving down the indirect cost percentage even further.

1. Sanctuary eligibility for comparable NIH funding

NIH funds behavioral research and research involving post-mortem tissues and examinations. Because the CHIMP Act allows for noninvasive behavioral studies and requires that “necropsy reports on chimpanzees in the sanctuary system [are made] available on a reasonable basis to persons who conduct biomedical or behavioral research,” chimpanzees retired to federal sanctuary could be considered a “research resource” and receive the funding currently awarded to laboratories. The only provision is that the chimpanzees in protocols, as required by the CHIMP Act, are for projects involving only noninvasive or post-mortem research as they now are upon approval of the sanctuary IACUCs. Private qualifying sanctuaries may also consider meeting requirements for any federally retired chimpanzees that would allow for such non-invasive studies and therefore make them eligible as well.

As an example of prior funding for noninvasive behavioral research, $99,000 was awarded to Georgia State University (Grant 5P01HD038051, “Comparative Studies of Primate Spatial Cognition and Memory,” between 2000 and 2007) to “assess how well chimpanzees can recall and report objects, locations, and events that they witnessed hours or days earlier in a large-scale environment.” As an example of prior funding for post-mortem research, $184,724 was awarded to Emory University (Grant 5P51RR000165, “Interrogating the Genome to Uncover Human Specializations of Brain & Cognition”) to use chimpanzees in “identifying differences in gene and protein expression…using unfixed tissue samples from short post-mortem time.” See Appendix B for more information and examples of behavioral and post-mortem research grants.

A portion of current or previous grant money awarded to laboratories is allocated to non-biomedical activities including veterinary care, facility maintenance, husbandry, behavioral management, enrichment studies, and behavioral studies. Because these same activities are conducted and/or allowable at federal sanctuary, the funding currently provided to laboratories under housing and maintenance type grants should qualify to be transferred to federal sanctuary. For example, a grant was awarded in August 2012 to Texas Biomedical Research Institute for over $523,000, which acknowledged in the accompanying grant progress report that the program was strictly maintaining the chimpanzees and no research was being conducted (Grant 8U42OD011184-02 Revised, NIH-Owned Chimpanzee Research Resource at SNPRC). Another active grant, 3U42OD011184-02S2 “NIH-Owned Chimpanzee Research Resource at the SNPRC,” notes that funds for “routine husbandry, high quality behavioral management and enrichment are critical.” This grant specifically allocates money for maintaining “a stable, healthy, and well defined population of chimpanzees,” and behavioral services include socialization and animal training, environmental enrichment, behavioral management, and staff training.

As another example, active grant 8U42OD011197-12 “Chimpanzee Research Resource” for $2,064,160 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center has primary objectives of “colony care and maintenance,” and “provision of the infrastructure needed to conduct studies,” where the type of studies is not specified, i.e. behavioral studies could be included. At the same facility from 2003 through 2010, the NIH awarded $27,143,626 (Grant 2U24RR015090, titled “Establishment/Maintenance of Biomedical Research Colony” until 2006 when title changed to “Chimpanzee Biomedical Research Resource”) specifically for “the provision of animal husbandry and health (veterinary) care, provision and maintenance of physical facilities, allocation of animals, and generation of income.” Nearly $255,000 was allocated for veterinarian care, and $50,829 for a behavioral scientist. Funds were also granted for studies on the value of environmental enrichment, which explored positive reinforcement training, presentation medium, housing types, nesting materials, response to novelty, control over enrichment, etc.

See Appendix C for more information and examples of funding provided to laboratories for some of the same projects and activities that might be conducted at sanctuaries like Chimp Haven.

Chimp Haven meets the requirements outlined in an August 2010 Request for Application (RFA-RR-10-008) to house chimpanzees. The purpose of the grant as outlined in the application request is “to maintain colonies of chimpanzees that are, have been, or will be used in NIH-sponsored research: providing for the complex social, behavioral, and medical needs of the aging research chimpanzee population” [emphasis added]. The request further states that non-profits with 501(c)(3) IRS status and who have “previously been funded to support NCRR-owned or -supported chimpanzees” are eligible to apply. Chimp Haven meets both of these standards for non-invasive behavioral research.

2. NIH’s award of housing and maintenance funds to New Iberia Research Center for chimpanzees no longer used in research

A recent NIH grant received by New Iberia Research Center provided funding strictly for maintenance and transport of chimpanzees and excluded research. It mirrors the type of grant that should be awarded to Chimp Haven for retirement of the chimpanzees. The award from September 19, 2012 (9U42OD014838-11 Revised, Chimpanzee Biomedical Research Program Limited Competition) for nearly $2 million states, “This award provides funding for the maintenance and transport of the chimpanzees, no funds may be used to conduct animal subjects research” [emphasis added]. The grant lists the project aims as:

1. To maintain [Chimpanzee Breeding and Research Program] chimpanzees in a setting that promotes species appropriate social interactions.
2. To monitor the health and wellbeing of the animals with state of the art veterinary care.
3. To coordinate the transfer of CBRP chimpanzees to other NIH supported facilities over the period of one year. This includes health screening, formation of new social groups, and arranging for safe shipment to new facilities.

3. NIH funds the Alamogordo Primate Facility, a holding facility for chimpanzees

APF is supported by the NIH and serves as a research reserve facility for government supported chimpanzees. According to an agreement made between NIH and the U.S. Air Force, “no invasive research shall be conducted on chimpanzees currently held at the APF.”⁹ The few individuals used in active research must be transferred to other facilities and cannot be returned to APF. Since 2001, the chimpanzees at APF have been managed by Charles River Laboratories Inc. (CRL) under an NIH contract.

In 2001, NIH awarded CRL a $42.8 million, 10-year contract to manage APF. The NIH contract with CRL was originally scheduled to end in May 2011, but NIH granted CRL a $3.2 million extension through December 2011. NIH has fully funded this facility, at a level much higher than Chimp Haven has received, even though only 38 chimpanzees of the 286 chimpanzees who have been held at the facility have been transferred into research, according to available records.

Further, NIH’s October 2012 census¹⁰ indicates that CRL receives a per diem of $65.50 per chimpanzee to house and maintain chimpanzees, while Chimp Haven’s per diem was $52.80 and private facilities like Save the Chimps report a per diem of only $41 for exemplary environments and veterinary care. The federal government would see a savings of more than $750,000-$1.4 million per year for the transfer of the 162 chimpanzees at CRL alone to sanctuary. These savings show a consistent historical trend – a 2009 review showed that CRL’s per diem per chimpanzee was $67 while Chimp Haven’s was $41.¹¹ The per diem savings at Chimp Haven would be even greater if Chimp Haven were allowed 100% funding in housing and maintenance grants as is CRL, and could then defer fundraising costs.¹² Additionally, savings would have been more pronounced if greater numbers of chimpanzees had been sent to the sanctuary as planned. It has been ascertained (see S. Ross, PhD, Lincoln Park Zoo’s Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes) that a population of approximately 166 chimpanzees allows a facility to attain “economy of scale.” Federal sanctuary, due to lack of funding and fewer chimpanzees retired to it, had not reached that number despite its willingness and capacity to do so with funding.

4. Taxpayer savings and indirect costs

The 1997 Institute for Laboratory Animal Research Report (ILAR) report Chimpanzees in Research: Strategies for their Ethical Care, Management and Use, which provided impetus for the CHIMP Act, opined that “sanctuaries offer an opportunity for substantially reducing costs of long-term maintenance of chimpanzees without compromising high standards of well-being.” In addition, the report noted that “the larger the number of animals moved to a sanctuary…the lower the annual marginal costs of adding one chimpanzee to the facility.”¹³ Thus, retiring chimpanzees to sanctuary has been known for years to be economically beneficial to the American public – in tax dollar savings and the ability to reallocate some funds to more promising areas of biomedical research.

Sanctuaries have the ability to house chimpanzees in better facilities at a lower cost in part due to their lower indirect cost rates. A typical grant includes a significant award for indirect costs, or “[c]osts that are incurred by a grantee…and cannot be identified specifically with a particular project or program…”¹⁴ NIH further defines indirect costs as: “Costs associated with the general operation of an institution and the conduct of its research activities…HHS [Health and Human Services] supports full reimbursement [for indirect costs] for most grant programs. Examples of allowable indirect costs include: Depreciation use allowance; Facilities operation and maintenance; General administration and expenses; Departmental administration; Sponsored project administration; and Libraries.”^{15, 16} While most U.S. 501(c)3 not-for-profit organizations adhere to a standard of 25% or less on indirect costs,¹⁷ a review of 2009 laboratory housing and maintenance type grants showed that awards for indirect costs range from 39% to 71%, or on average 51%, of the total award (see Table 1). The New Iberia Research Center, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, MD Anderson, Yerkes, and APF received nearly $28 million in 2008 and $33 million in 2009 from NIH for housing and maintenance type grants.¹⁸ Out of that $28 and $33 million, roughly half was allocated for indirect costs – $14 and $17 million in taxpayer money. In the midst of federal budget cuts, $14-$17 million in “indirect cost” handouts to institutions is a significant waste of tax dollars that could have provided far better care for chimpanzees in sanctuary and been redirected to more valid areas of research. On the other hand, Chimp Haven’s 2012 contract indicated a 34% indirect cost rate. It must be repeated that if the sanctuary did not have to engage in fundraising to meet match requirements, as the laboratories have not had to do, and was allowed to reach full capacity, the indirect cost would be driven down even lower.

As a further example of increased extraneous costs of laboratories, included in the $28 million NIH awarded in 2008 to New Iberia, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, MD Anderson, and Yerkes was a $4.5 million award for CRL¹⁹ to house and maintain chimpanzees at APF. This $4.5 million was a distribution of a 10-year, $42.8-million contract that NIH had with CRL. This contract had a different structure and terms than the typical NIH housing and maintenance type grant; for example, in addition to the over $4 million a year, CRL was allowed an undisclosed “annual incentive fee” that could be earned. NIH will not disclose the amount of or criteria for this award, calling it “proprietary information.”²⁰ Further, information as to what CRL negotiated as a percentage of their total NIH contract for indirect costs is also unavailable.

D. NIH’s Funding Discretion

Housing chimpanzees in sanctuaries rather than labs would save NIH and therefore U.S. taxpayers money, allow our federal sanctuary to fulfill its mission, and provide a superior life of excellent care and ethologically appropriate housing for the chimpanzees. According to the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (formerly Alliance of North American Chimpanzee Sanctuaries):

Based on experience at the two larger Alliance member sanctuaries that experience this economy of scale, annual costs per chimpanzee of $13,140-$16,790 (range $36-46 per day) for direct care and administrative costs are achieved. An average daily cost per chimpanzee of $41 is anticipated with expansion of sanctuaries to accept additional chimpanzees retired by the government…Comparing an average cost of $41 per day in a sanctuary with the comparable average laboratory per diem of $60 would result in savings of approximately $90 million over the lifespan of the chimpanzees for the approximately 500 government owned chimpanzees (Alliance of North American Chimpanzee Sanctuaries 2010).

More recently, NIH released figures of its negotiated per diems for federally-owned and/or supported chimpanzees. The range of rates clearly demonstrate that NIH has liberty and discretion as to where and how to appropriate money, and the ability to decide where and how to appropriate funds to house and maintain chimpanzees – including in sanctuary. NIH’s figures for the costs for maintaining chimpanzees who they own or support suggests a discretionary range even among laboratories, as demonstrated by figures released by NIH on October 23, 2012:

E. Conclusion

Hundreds of chimpanzees who have been subjected to years of laboratory confinement and research deserve to live out the remainder of their lives in sanctuaries expert in providing for their physical and psychological well-being in far more ethologically appropriate environments than any current U.S. laboratory can or does provide. Both the CoC and Congress, as evident by the enactment of the CHIMP Act in 2000 and the unprecedented number of co-sponsors for the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, have demonstrated that they have concluded chimpanzees no longer being used in or needed for research should be sent to sanctuary instead of languishing in laboratories at enormous costs to the quality of their lives and to taxpayers. Materials and supplies purchased with federal dollars are the property of our government and can and should be transferred to federal sanctuary or any private qualifying sanctuaries eligible and willing to receive retired federal chimpanzees thus mitigating, even if not eliminating, the expense of new construction. Otherwise, the government will shoulder the same burden twice and private labs will benefit at the expense of taxpayers, sanctuary, and chimpanzees. This paper outlines strong arguments that sanctuary qualifies for construction, transfer, and housing and maintenance grants, and the NIH therefore has the necessary means to transfer budget dollars and materials it has already paid for as a major contribution to the funding needed to realize the IOM and CoC’s recommendations. Sanctuary can be funded even in the absence of “new” sources of dollars. While such additional funding should be pursued, it must be noted that the lifetime care of federally-owned or supported chimpanzees is neither a new expense nor an expense and responsibility of the federal government that changes because chimpanzees are transferred from private labs to sanctuary. There will be only the following positive changes: the costs will be somewhat less and the quality of life for the chimpanzees overwhelmingly better. NIH has awarded grants to laboratories for the same purposes that the federal sanctuary would be using the dollars, and the same funding that is already supporting chimpanzees in laboratories can and must now be used to support the very same chimpanzees in sanctuary.

For detailed grant information and appendixes, please download the pdf.

<sup>1. Butler, T. 2011. “Chimp Haven Letter to Dr. Jeffrey Kahn IOM/NAS Committee on the Use of Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research.”
2. Institute of Medicine. 2011. Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research: Assessing the Necessity. The National Academies Press. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13257
3. Bailey, J, J Balcombe, and T Capaldo. 2007. Chimpanzee Research: An Examination of Its Contribution to Biomedical Knowledge and Efficacy in Combating Human Diseases. Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories. http://www.releasechimps.org/pdfs/chimp-efficacy-paper-main.pdf
4. NIH Grants Policy Statement. Accessed January 30, 2013 from http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/nihgps_2003/NIHGPS_Part9.htm
5. NIH Grants Policy Statement 10.6.4 Use of Facility and Disposition. Accessed January 30, 2013 from http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/nihgps_2011/nihgps_ch10.htm#facility_use_and_disposition
6. See CHIMP Act discussed above; James Anderson, M.D., Ph.D. statement to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife April 24, 2012, “NIH is deeply committed to the care and welfare of chimpanzees.”; and
Council of Councils Working Group on the Use of Chimpanzees in NIH-Supported Research Report p. 83, “All chimpanzee experiments done in the last 20 years have been survival experiments involving BSL2 infectious agents, and most animals have been used for multiple protocols (e.g., HBV, HCV, HIV-1); funding for these experiments has included the cost of lifetime care.”
7. Some housing and maintenance grants include support for other nonhuman primates in addition to chimpanzees.
8. See: page 3 grant 9U42Od014838-11 Revised, Chimpanzee Biomedical Research Program Limited Competition (U42) states “Carry over of an unobligated balance into the next budget period requires Grants Management Officer prior approval.”; NIH Grants Policy Statement states “Automatic carryover of unobligated balances applies to all awards except…cooperative agreements (U)…“; and Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Title 45, § 74.28, “Where a funding period is specified, a recipient may charge to the award only allowable costs resulting from obligations incurred during the funding period and any pre-award costs authorized by the HHS awarding agency pursuant to § 74.25(d)(1).”
9. Institute of Medicine. (2011). Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research: Assessing the Necessity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
10. NIH. 2012. Costs for Maintaining Humane Care and Welfare of Chimpanzees, October 23, 2012. Accessed January 30, 2013 from http://dpcpsi.nih.gov/orip/cm/chimpanzee_maintenance.aspx
11. Capaldo, T, M Owens, and M Lary. 2010. An Economic Analysis: Chimpanzee Housing and Maintenance in U.S. Laboratories and Sanctuaries. Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories.
12. This trend in lower per diem costs and government savings in sanctuary versus laboratories is longstanding. Take for example the 2009 figures of CRL, Chimp Haven, and Save the Chimps, which had comparable numbers of chimpanzees: The per diems were: $67 at CRl, $41 at Chimp Haven, and $38 at Save the Chimps.
13. Institute for Laboratory Animal Research Committee on Long-Term Care of Chimpanzees. 1997. Chimpanzees in Research: Strategies for Their Ethical Care, Management, and Use. Compass Series. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.
14. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Office of Extramural Research. 2009. “Glossary & Acronym List – Facilities & Administrative Costs.” http://grants.nih.gov/grants/glossary.htm#F3 Acces.sed 31 January 2013.
15. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). 2009. “NIAID Glossary of Funding and Policy Terms and Acronyms – Facilities and Administrative Costs.” http://www.niaid.nih.gov/researchfunding/glossary/Pages/f.aspx#fanda Acces.sed 31 January 2013
16. In comparison, direct costs are defined as “[c]osts in a grant or contract that support a project or program. Allowable direct costs include: Salaries and fringe benefits of principal investigators and supporting staff; Equipment and supplies; Travel expenses; Fees and supporting costs for consultant services; Contract services (also called sub-award); Costs for consortium participants; Inpatient and outpatient costs for human subjects; Alterations and renovations to facilities…; Publications and other miscellaneous expenses” (NIAID 2009b).
17. Charity Navigator. 2010. http://www.charitynavigator.org (accessed August 2010).
18. Some housing and maintenance grants include support for other nonhuman primates in addition to chimpanzees.
19. CRL is a publicly traded, for-profit organization. In 2007, CRL generated $1.2 billion in revenue and realized a profit of $158 million (CRL 2007).
20. Received in response to FOIA request.
21. NIH. 2012. Costs for Maintaining Humane Care and Welfare of Chimpanzees, October 23, 2012. Accessed January 30, 2013 from http://dpcpsi.nih.gov/orip/cm/chimpanzee_maintenance.aspx</sup>

The NIH seeks public input on its recent Council of Councils (CoC) recommendations regarding the fate of federally owned chimpanzees in U.S. laboratories. In January, the CoC unanimously accepted its Working Group’s findings that nearly all federally owned chimpanzees should be retired and sent to federal sanctuary. The report also defined exemplary criteria for appropriate environments for future housing and care, and recommended immediately ending two-thirds of current biomedical research using chimpanzees.

NEAVS fully supports nearly all the CoC recommendations and appreciates NIH director Dr. Francis Collins’ commitment to chimpanzees. However, we see no reason, scientifically or ethically, to accept the recommendation to hold 50 chimpanzees for “future potential research.” Please tell NIH you want all the other recommendations accepted and all chimpanzees retired.

Before deciding how it will implement the recommendations, the NIH will review public comments. We urge you to share your concern for chimpanzees in research and your dedication to getting them all out (read NEAVS' comments in full). Please follow the instructions below to give your input to NIH – deadline March 23.

Step 1: Visit the Request for Information website.

Step 2: Fill in your name and email.

Step 3: Scroll to the bottom. In the box titled “Overall Comments,” please use the following talking points to write short comments.

Thank NIH director Dr. Francis Collins for his vision and commitment to providing humane and better care to chimpanzees. Thank him for acknowledging and honoring the NIH’s commitment to their lifetime care.

Ask Dr. Collins to use his authority to transfer dollars for the housing and care of chimpanzees in laboratories to those same chimpanzees’ housing and care in sanctuary.

If the chimpanzees remained in labs, NIH would continue to support them. Those same funds will be better spent in sanctuary. Appeal to Dr. Collins to transfer federal dollars to sanctuary care, now!

Assert that a reserve population of chimpanzees is unnecessary, as past and present science disproves any need for chimpanzees in research. Refer to scientists at an Institute of Medicine hearing who testified chimpanzees have no future value in research. Wholeheartedly recommend all federally owned chimpanzees be transferred to sanctuary.

Recorded Feb. 14, 2013
Dr. Theodora Capaldo's segment begins at 2:00.

To learn more about the new chimpanzees, visit Chimp Haven's website. To see more photos of the first 16 to arrive from New Iberia Research Center – Julius, Phyllis, Sandy, Jessica, Debbie, Linda, Kathy, Margaret, Daisy, Megan, Candy, Jimmy, Becky, Mackensie, Dea, and Quilla – visit Chimp Haven's Flicker page.

The first chimpanzees from a south Louisiana lab have arrived at the national sanctuary for retired federal research chimps, with a recommendation for hundreds more to be sent there from other laboratories around the country.

Nine chimps came to Chimp Haven outside Shreveport on Tuesday from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's New Iberia Research Center, which no longer has an NIH chimp research contract. Seven more are expected Thursday and another 95 will arrive over the coming months, sanctuary officials said.

As the New Iberia animals arrived, a National Institutes of Health committee was recommending that all but about 50 of the agency's hundreds of research chimpanzees should be retired to the national sanctuary in Keithville, and all of them should have plenty of room to play.

...

                      Kathy (photo: Chimp Haven)

Chimpanzees should be kept in groups of at least seven, with about 1,000 square feet of outdoor space per chimp — roughly one-sixth of an acre for a group of seven, according to the proposal.

The space must include year-round outdoor access with a variety of natural surfaces such as grass, dirt and mulch, and enough climbing space to let all members of large troupes travel, feed and rest well above the ground, and with material to let them build new nests each day, the report said.

Chimp Haven's enclosures range from a quarter-acre to five acres, some of them forested and all with climbing structures.

The announcement of its first animals from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's New Iberia Research Center was delayed a day to keep stress on them to a minimum, officials said.

"Understandably, the chimpanzees are nervous when they arrive, and we do everything possible to ease their stress. That includes limiting the number of people in the area to only those who are required to help with the chimpanzees. We also must minimize the risks of the chimpanzees being exposed to communicable diseases," veterinarian Raven Jackson said in the news release.

A $30 million cap on total spending for construction and care of Chimp Haven's retirees has been looming. That would stop NIH from contributing 75 percent of the $13,000 annual cost to care for each federal chimpanzee.

Conlee said the Humane Society will urge Congress to move money now spent on research contracts to Chimp Haven. The sanctuary gives the animals better care for less money than the labs are paid, she said.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health has been advised to significantly curtail research involving chimpanzees by retiring most of the 450 animals it funds or supports, leaving only a few dozen for research. The retired animals would go to sanctuaries.

The recommendation comes in a report by a council of external advisers to the NIH that culminates two years of debate about the use of chimpanzees in U.S. scientific research.
For years, many scientists and animal advocates have argued that the use of chimpanzees in research in outdated and unnecessary.

The suggestions in the 86-page report on paring down the chimpanzee program include retiring government-owned chimpanzees currently in laboratories, substantially decreasing the number of government-funded grants involving lab chimps and eliminating chimpanzee breeding for research.

“This is a historic step forward, and these experts are reinforcing what the public has been asking for, which is to move away from chimpanzee experimentation and move toward retiring chimpanzees to sanctuary,” said Kathleen Conlee, vice-president of animal research issues at the Humane Society of the United States.

The report also calls for an end to half of ongoing experiments involving chimpanzees and sets a high threshold for future experiments, including vetting of NIH-approved proposals by an independent committee.

It also urges that within the next five years the remaining 50 chimpanzees kept for research be housed in better facilities with room for climbing, access to outdoors in all weather, space of at least 93 square metres per chimp and a minimum of seven animals per facility.

“Not one lab meets the standards they are urging in the report,” said Conlee. “And they are urging a fairly quick timetable for seeing those standards implemented.”

The recommendations will be open for public input until March, after which the NIH will decide if it will put them into effect. But the government agency has been leaning toward ending the practice since December 2011, when the Institute of Medicine, a non-partisan advisory body, said current research use of chimpanzees is “largely unnecessary.”
That comes as no surprise to animal advocates.

“When we looked at the data, we saw that chimpanzees were not being used in research but rather were languishing in labs at an enormous taxpayer expense and at an expense to the quality of their lives,” said Dr. Theodora Capaldo, president and executive director of the New England Anti-Vivisection Society, which has long campaigned for the release of chimpanzees in U.S. labs.

“We saw a rapid decline in the use of chimpanzees and that science itself was abandoning the chimpanzee as a model.”

However, not everyone is pleased with the recommendations. The Texas Biomedical Research Institute issued a statement saying the recommendations will “severely limit the future use of chimpanzees in biomedical research and that will slow urgently needed medical advances necessary to prevent and treat human diseases that afflict millions of Americans as well as hundreds of millions of people living in other countries.”

According to Conlee, there are still about 350 privately owned chimpanzees in the U.S. that are not affected by the recommendations and can still be used for research.

If the recommendations are approved, the challenge will be to move the NIH’s 400 chimpanzees to sanctuaries across the U.S. The report estimates it will take three to five years to see the animals successfully moved. The government will be responsible for paying for most of the maintenance of the animals, although the sanctuaries are also required to raise a share of money for maintenance and expansion.

Conlee believes the NIH is committed to this change in attitude.

“They have made many comments in the press that they anticipate a significant decrease in chimpanzee use and the need to put them in sanctuary,” she said. “So I think they have been signalling that they will embrace these recommendations.”

The announcement is a third major coup in our work to end the use of chimpanzees in U.S. research. In December 2010, the NIH commissioned an IOM study to assess whether chimpanzees are or will be necessary for biomedical and behavioral research. One year later, the IOM issued stringent recommendations following their finding that chimpanzees are not needed in most areas of current research. Immediately following the IOM report, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins announced they were committed to adopting the IOM recommendations. NIH appointed the CoC Working Group to recommend how to best implement the IOM findings, thus continuing momentum at the highest levels of government to end U.S. chimpanzee use.

The CoC has submitted the report to Dr. Collins for consideration for adoption. In this NEAVS eALERT’s brief and timely summary of the three-hour presentation and media Q&A, we want to highlight that of 451 identified NIH-owned or -supported chimpanzees currently held in U.S. labs and available for research, the Working Group recommended approximately 90% of them be retired from research and transferred to sanctuary within three to five years. The report states, “research involving chimpanzees has rarely accelerated new discoveries or the advancement of human health for infectious diseases,” and “there is no compelling scientific reason to maintain a sufficiently large reserve population of chimpanzees suitable and/or available for infectious disease research.” The report does stipulate a recommendation to maintain a small population of 50 chimpanzees for possible future research. However, that number is recommended to be reconsidered every five years. As part of their charge to assess current use of chimpanzees in research, the Working Group recommended an end to two-thirds of all current biomedical studies involving chimpanzees.

The Working Group recommendations, which were voted 13-0 for approval by the full CoC, acknowledge any and all theoretical potential future use of chimpanzees must be subjected to a strict independent oversight committee to assess whether their use is acceptable, critical, and meets all IOM guidelines – including housing in an ethologically appropriate environment. Among the most important factors defined by the Working Group as to what constitutes an ethologically appropriate environment was that chimpanzees be allowed “choice and self-determination” and that they be maintained in a “culture of care” to “engender respect and mutuality of positive human-animal relationships.” However, in the event of such a proposed future need for research into new or emerging diseases for which only a chimpanzee is deemed suitable, there are, in addition to ethical issues and the lack of scientific basis for such a use, practical limitations in that no U.S. bio-safety laboratory is suitable for nor designed to accommodate chimpanzees.

NIH will now review the Working Group’s findings during a 60-day public comment period before it issues its decision on adopting the recommendations – expected in late March. NEAVS is committed to getting the recommendations adopted, will be submitting comments on the report to the NIH, and is cautiously optimistic about NIH’s upcoming decision. If NIH adopts the recommendations, NEAVS will prioritize making certain the 50 chimpanzees held for possible future use will NEVER be used. Watch for upcoming reports on this and other positive developments in NEAVS’ Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Labs campaign.

To read NEAVS' comments in full, click here.

For more information, see the New York Times article “Health Agency Moves to Retire Most Chimps Used for Research.”

By Theodora Capaldo

When the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) launched Project R&R: Release & Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories in 2006, 1,300 chimpanzees languished in U.S. laboratories. The campaign was a focused effort to end invasive and harmful research on the first non-human species in the U.S. Today, more and more chimpanzees are being transferred to sanctuary as momentum for the ethical and scientific cases against using them in biomedical research continues to grow. Though the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act was one of many bills to not pass in the 112th Congress, policy is taking shape that reflects an end to holding and using chimpanzees in US labs. This month an NIH-convened council is expected to release its report on current and future chimpanzee use in NIH-supported research. The report will address how the NIH will realize its commitment to follow the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences’ recommendations from an expert paneled and lengthy assessment of the need for chimpanzees. The IOM report could not find any area of current biomedical research where the use of chimpanzees is critical and concluded that any possible future use must meet strict criteria. As to future need, the IOM noted that it could not conclude whether there would or would not be such future need.

Given the weight of scientific evidence, legislative and government support, and public opinion, chimpanzees who have been subjected to years of trauma, confinement, and research will one day soon have the chance to live the remainder of their lives in sanctuaries. They will be “released” and provided the “restitution” that only a sanctuary of high standards is capable of providing. The plight of chimpanzees in US labs highlights the suffering of all animals in laboratories. The scientific arguments highlight that even a species as closely related to humans as chimpanzees is a poor, limited, and even dangerous model by which to study human health and the inferiority of all animal research compared to modern methods. Chimpanzees are a keystone species by which myriad issues regarding the use of animals in research can be measured. Survivors in sanctuary bear witness to the degree of harm and suffering caused to them and are another indictment of the lack of effective laws and enforcement of those laws for animals in labs.

In short, there are no effective laws protecting animals in laboratories. The Animal Welfare Act (AWA), the only U.S. federal law governing animals’ “welfare,” provides minimal protections for less than 10% of animals used in laboratories. It excludes rats, mice, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and farmed animals in research.

For the few animals it covers, the regulations only address housing, feeding, handling, and veterinary care – and even these inadequately. Confinement in small, barren cages is common and animals live under constant stress and boredom as testified to in the animals’ behaviors: dogs curled up in the back of a cage; alarm calls from chimpanzees as workers prepare for a “knockdown” (anesthesia by dart gun); and monkeys driven literally insane by routine lab stressors. Though highly social species like primates are supposed to be given contact with their own species, such contact can be satisfied via the ability to just see or hear another individual. For some experiments it is legal to isolate them entirely. Consequently, stereotypic behaviors, self-mutilation, withdrawal, anorexia, and other signs of severe psychological stress are prevalent and go uncorrected. Only an estimated 125 US Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors enforce regulations at over 12,000 research, exhibition, breeding, or animal dealer facilities, hardly allowing for adequate inspection or enforcement of the AWA. When the USDA finds facilities in non-compliance with law, they often do not issue penalties. When they do, they are small and inconsequential, especially in comparison to the profits gleaned from animal use both in federal grant dollars and private contracts with pharmaceutical companies, etc.

The AWA cannot prohibit any protocol approved by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), whose members are appointed by the facility itself and largely composed of animal researchers and others associated with the research institution, regardless of the pain or distress it causes. Pain medicine, food, and water can be withheld; an animal can be kept in isolation or restraining devices; or infected with diseases, poisoned, burned, shocked, paralyzed, and subjected to other invasive procedures. The public sees disturbing undercover photos and videos and wonders why the USDA does not take action. Quite simply: because it is legal to cause severe suffering and death to animals in laboratories.

Animals in labs suffer tremendously in the name of science. However, systematic analysis of biomedical literature shows that animals have given us inadequate or erroneous information in human disease and toxicology and that in many cases medical breakthroughs were delayed by dependence on animal models. If you flipped a coin to guess how a human will respond to a certain drug or chemical, for example, your prediction would be as accurate as if you tested it on a nonhuman animal. While humans and other animals are similar on the gross anatomical level, we differ at the cellular and molecular levels where disease occurs and medications act.

According to Neil Wilcox, former senior science policy officer with the FDA, “The technology that is emerging today looks at the cellular, subcellular, molecular, and genetic level, examining the effect of a particular chemical on a part of a molecule, a gene, or an enzyme. We’re asking questions about the specific mechanism that causes the effect."¹ Animals cannot answer these questions – they only give us guesses. Science is not – or at least should not be – about guessing; it is about prediction (validity) and consistency of results (reliability).

Even in a species’ whose DNA is nearly identical to humans, the chimpanzee, gene variations and expression result in vast important differences that render even the chimpanzee an “unnecessary” model to study human health and disease. Species differences exist in the process by which a drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and eliminated, and in the causes, progression, and outcome of diseases. As a result, for example, a mouse may develop cancer in the same location as a human, but they are not the same cancers. According to Dr. Richard Klausner, former Director of the National Cancer Institute, “We have cured cancer in mice for decades – and it simply didn’t work in humans.” Breakthroughs in cancer treatment can be attributed, in large part, to early detection from sophisticated imaging technology.

Non-animal methods are superior on all fronts: they are more efficient, accurate, and cost-effective than animal experiments. Using human cell cultures to test toxicity yields 76-84% accurate prediction, illuminates specific organ damage, and other more meaningful results than animal tests which hover around 46-50% accuracy, literally no better than a coin flip. The inadequacy of the AWA and its enforcement as well as unnecessary, inferior, and cruel animal use must be addressed in a civilized and scientifically-advanced country such as ours. We are hopefully moving toward more honest science where the economic gains that fuel the use and abuse of animals will be replaced by the better and more humane science of “alternatives.”

¹ Rudacille, D. 2000. The Scalpel and the Butterfly: The Conflict Between Animal Research and Animal Protection. USA: University of California Press.