This is not a new study, but this is an analysis of the results that have come up with and essentially a question: Is this necessary? And if it is necessary, how best to go about it?ĭAVIES: Right. And now, the National Institutes of Health and the - they've gotten involved with this. It's called the - change of the name - the Texas Biomedical Research Institute. ![]() They - there are some activists who say, it doesn't matter, we -humanity does not have a right to use the apes for our experiments no matter what the outcome might be, even if it does come up with a cure or a way to improve the human condition.ĬONAN: And you were right. A lot of oversight and procedures and policies are in place to make sure the apes are well cared for. I mean, this is very expensive to maintain. They don't - aren't allowed to use experiment on apes just willy-nilly, just on a whim. There are a lot of safeguards in place to make sure that the apes are treated humanely. I mean, they have come up with medical breakthroughs, saying that they're making headway in finding ways to knock down hepatitis C and other medical conditions that impact people. And they were going to move into San Antonio to the - at the Texas Biomedical Research Foundation and use them for -increase the colony that they have here for this testing.ĬONAN: And again, the doctors say there is a necessity, but is there any proof that the experiments that they've conducted on these apes has provided with results?ĭAVIES: Well, yeah. And they were going to they had been semi-retired, in a sense they weren't going to be used for any more experiments. There's a New Mexico Air Force base where they had chimps that were being used for research for NASA. This issue's come up again recently here in San Antonio on the controversy over the idea to import chimps who had been in, I guess, what you might call semi-retirement, and put them back in the game.ĭAVIES: Right. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.Īnd our guest again is David Davies, the news director here at Texas Public Radio. We're talking about research on chimpanzees, biomedical research. But as you suggest, other people feel differently. The scientists say this is no more painful or uncomfortable to the apes than the apes when they play with each other and bite each other pretty, you know, if they roughhouse.ĬONAN: Yes. The biopsies are done by insertion of a large needle into the side. But actually, what they do is they're drawing blood, they're taking biopsies of the - of livers of the apes after they receive the treatment to see if they had any kind of liver damage. But that - and that sounds very, you know, terrible, like you're opening up the apes and looking at them. Is the treatment, though, cruel?ĭAVIES: Well, the way the - animal rights activists are saying that they're using invasive research on the apes. They don't get ill from hepatitis C, but they're able to use them to test the effectiveness of treatments.ĬONAN: And is this - well, an animal rights advocate would say this is cruel inherently. And the only way to, right now, that scientists are looking at using great apes, who they - they give them hepatitis C, but they don't get symptomatic. It's a - millions of people could find themselves in need for a cure of hepatitis C. It's - people -many people have it, don't even know they have it. It's the largest source for things like liver cancer, need for liver transplants. Thanks very much for having us today.ĭAVID MARTIN DAVIES: Thanks for being here, Neal.ĬONAN: And what are the scientists at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research here hoping to learn from chimp research?ĭAVIES: They're looking to see - look for a cure or way to manage hepatitis C, which is a deadly condition. Texas Public Radio news director David Martin Davies covered this controversy here in San Antonio. Many animal rights advocates argue that testing on chimps is unnecessary and unethical. Scientists insist the research is conducted humanely and that it's the only way to develop potentially life-saving medical treatments. ![]() ![]() Institute of Medicine initiated a new review to determine if we should continue or join Europe, Australia and New Zealand and Japan, all of which have banned testing on apes. San Antonio is home to one of only a handful of sites around the world that conducts medical research on great apes, in this case, chimpanzees - our closest relatives - therefore, the animal of choice for study of treatments on diseases like hepatitis C.
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