NIH temporarily bans new chimpanzee research

Some 937 chimpanzees live in five facilities in the United States. The NIH owns or otherwise funds about 600 of the chimps, many of which are older and retired from research.

The non-NIH chimps are owned by the research institutes and made available to drug companies. The new NIH rules do not apply to those animals.

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Some 340 NIH and non-NIH chimps live at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana. The center’s director, Thomas Rowell, expressed concerns about the new rules disallowing certain medical tests on the NIH chimps that the Food and Drug Administration might require as it evaluates potential drugs.

Rowell said he will seek clarification on that and other points during a Dec. 20 conference call with the IOM committee.

Another 153 NIH-owned chimps reside at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio. In a statement, the institute’s chief scientific officer, John L. VandeBerg, welcomed the new scrutiny.

“We look forward to the [NIH committee’s] assessment of the current and proposed research projects at our primate center,” he said.

The European Union banned chimpanzee research last year, leaving the United States and the small African nation of Gabon as the only countries with chimpanzee medical research programs. At drug companies, chimp research is waning with the emergence of lower-cost, higher-tech alternatives.

Animal-rights groups applauded the report and the NIH decision.

It’s “wonderful news,” said David Pearle, a spokesman for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, said in a statement that the IOM report points to “only one reasonable conclusion: it’s time to end the use of chimps in harmful, invasive research.”

“We think they got it about 90 percent right,” said John Pippin, director of academic affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which opposes chimp research. “The unspoken message is that the era of chimp research for human diseases is ending.”

The issue exploded last December after the NIH began moving older chimps from a retirement facility in New Mexico to an active research laboratory in Texas. After a public outcry, Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) asked the IOM to look into the matter.

Congress could end the debate by passing a proposed bill, the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, which would ban all chimpanzee research.

However, the bill, sponsored by Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-Md.), has been stalled for three years and appears far from a vote.