Help Keep Lab Chimps Safe from the Government

H.R. 5798, the bill that would prevent retired chimps in Chimp Haven from being pulled out for retesting passed the House on December 6, 2006 and went on to the Senate. Protests from Senator Michael B. Enzi halted the Senate from voting on the bill, and no further action has been taken.

Sen. Enzi claimed that the bill shouldn't be passed because the chimps may be needed in the future to "protect the United States...from bioterrorism attacks." The Senator maintains that in the case of such an attack, the chimps could be used to test the effects of the bioterrorism and to find an antidote because these creatures share such close DNA with humans. There is a flaw with what Sen. Enzi is saying though. When AIDS first became an epidemic, scientists tried to use chimps to find a cure. The only thing that they found however, was that the DNA strand that infects humans with AIDS doesn't infect chimps. The tests run on the primates were completely useless. Chimps may be similar to us, but they are not the same. Not to mention the fact that scientific laboratories that test on animals have more chimps than they know what to do with. More and more are bred every day for scientific purposes, why recall old and sick chimps to the labs?

Which brings us to the next point, the chimps in Chimp Haven are extremely sick from animal testing. They have arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, chronic hepatitis, etc. ailments that render them useless for testing. There is a reason that these chimps are in Chimp Haven (known to its employees as a hospice center), and it's the same reason why they should be able to stay there.