Knight
A. The poor contribution of chimpanzee experiments to
biomedical progress. J
Appl Anim Welf Sci 2007;
10(4): 281-308.
Download (428 kb). Scientific poster (A0 portrait
size, 1.26 mb).
This study critically scrutinises the contribution of
chimpanzee research towards human healthcare
advancements, and received awards at the Conservation and
Animal Welfare Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 2006.
ABSTRACT
Biomedical research on captive chimpanzees incurs
substantial nonhuman animal welfare, ethical, and
financial costs that advocates claim result in
substantial advancements in biomedical knowledge.
However, demonstrating minimal contribution toward the
advancement of biomedical knowledge generally, subsequent
papers did not cite 49.5% (47/95), of 95 experiments
randomly selected from a population of 749 published
worldwide between 1995 and 2004. Only 14.7% (14/95) were
cited by 27 papers that abstracts indicated described
well-developed methods for combating human diseases.
However, detailed examination of these medical papers
revealed that in vitro studies, human clinical and
epidemiological studies, molecular assays and methods,
and genomic studies contributed most to their
development. No chimpanzee study made an essential
contribution, or, in most cases, a significant
contribution of any kind, to the development of the
medical method described. The approval of these
experiments indicates a failure of the ethics committee
system. The demonstrable lack of benefit of most
chimpanzee experimentation and its profound animal
welfare and bioethical costs indicate that a ban is
warranted in those remaining countries — notably the
United States — that continue to conduct it.
Knight
A. The beginning of the end for chimpanzee
experiments? Philos
Ethics Humanit Med 2008;
3:16. (2 June). http://www.peh-med.com/content/3/1/16.
Download (407 kb). Scientific poster (A3 portrait
size, 1.10 mb).
ABSTRACT
The advanced sensory, psychological and social abilities
of chimpanzees confer upon them a profound ability to
suffer when born into unnatural captive environments, or
captured from the wild — as many older research
chimpanzees once were — and when subsequently subjected
to confinement, social disruption, and involuntary
participation in potentially harmful biomedical research.
Justifications for such research depend primarily on the
important contributions advocates claim it has made
toward medical advancements. However, a recent
large-scale systematic review indicates that invasive
chimpanzee experiments rarely provide benefits in excess
of their profound animal welfare, bioethical and
financial costs. The approval of large numbers of these
experiments — particularly within the US — therefore
indicates a failure of the ethics committee system. By
2008, legislative or policy bans or restrictions on
invasive great ape experimentation existed in seven
European countries, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. In
continuing to conduct such experiments on chimpanzees and
other great apes, the US was almost completely isolated
internationally. In 2007, however, the US National
Institutes of Health National Center for Research
Resources implemented a permanent funding moratorium on
chimpanzee breeding, which is expected to result in a
major decline in laboratory chimpanzee numbers over the
next 30 years, as most are retired or die. Additionally,
in 2008, The Great Ape Protection Act was introduced to
Congress. The bill proposed to end invasive research and
testing on an estimated 1,200 chimpanzees confined within
US laboratories, and, for approximately 600
federally-owned, to ensure their permanent retirement to
sanctuaries. These events have created an unprecedented
opportunity for US legislators, researchers, and others,
to consider a global ban on invasive chimpanzee research.
Such a ban would not only uphold the best interests of
chimpanzees, and other research fields presently deprived
of funding, but would also increase the compliance of US
animal researchers with internationally-accepted animal
welfare and bioethical standards. It could even result in
the first global moratorium on invasive research, for any
non-human species, unless conducted in the best interests
of the individual or species.
