Feds End Chimpanzee Research

The National Institutes of Health has taken a hint after reading a recent report published by the Institute of Medicine that shows chimpanzee health research is rarely justified and in doing so they have placed a temporary ban on the use of chimps in new research.

According to the organization the ban is “effective immediately.”

While the ban is a welcomed sign for animal research protesters it doesn’t necessarily mean research will stop indefinitely. A committee will now examine research proposals and investigate current chimp-based research at which point tougher standards will be issued.

Under their proposed changes it’s expected that 27 current projects backed by the agency will be shut down permanently.

The report was compiled at the urging of Congress and suggested that a “very high bar” be set when determining if chimp research will actually help a specific cause.

In the report the committee chair responded that research carries “a moral cost and ethical issues” as chimps approach human level intelligence.

It’s believed that hepatitis C may be the only disease in which researchers from the agency seek the use of chimpanzee test subjects.

According to one representative for a psysicians’ ethic committee:

“The unspoken message is that the era of chimp research for human diseases is ending.”

That same research says the NIH gets it right about 90% of the time.

Do you think it’s time to end chimpanzee testing given the lack of results and moral issues such tests have yielded over the years?