The Use of Chimpanzees for Medical Research

            A topic covered by Emily Anthes Frankenstein’s Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech’s Brave New Beasts is how important animals have become in humans lives, in particularly the western world.  As technology advances and human’s obsession of knowing the unknown, the use of animals for biotechnology may have reached it’s peak. Emily Anthes explains how livestock, pets, and research animals are being more protected now more than ever (Anthes pg. 2207/4526 ebook).

            It has become more evident that research on animals should be considered illegal, some might say. In fact, there are many cities in the United States that have actually passed laws that say, “humans aren’t owners of their animal companions rather they are guardians of them” (Anthes pg 2207/4526 ebook). This should come to no surprise considering Americans spend approximately $48 billion a year on their pets (Anthes 2207/4526 ebook).

With all that said, how is it that Americans can spend $48 billion on their pets—whom they consider part of their family—yet we spend $300 billion eating animal flesh? (Anthes 2207/4526 ebooks). A study done by Harold Herzog—a human animal relation psychologist—that surveyed students based upon where they stand on how animals should be treated. He found that half of the students agreed “animals are just like people in all important ways” (Anthes 2216/4526 ebook). Despite the fact that they believed animals and people are considered equal, 90% of these students ate meat and 50% supported xenotransplantation (Anthes 2216/4526 ebook).

To elaborate further, a national poll did a survey asking the same question. They found 71% of Americans believe animals need protection from any exploitation and 25% of Americans believe animals should have some rights as people do. However overall they recorded that 64% agreed with using animals for medical research (Anthes 2216/4526 ebook). How is it that we can have these conflicting thoughts that clearly oppose one another?

                      

Should primates like chimpanzees be used for lab research?

These opposing views may have contributed to the NIH announcement in 2011 that they were “indefinitely suspending the funding of new research on chimpanzees…that will take effect in 2013” (Anthes 2207/4526 ebook). We are now seeing steps taken to prohibit use of animals for medical research, specifically on chimps. According to Time Magazine, Harvard Medical School decided to close their primate research center due to “difficult economic climate for biomedical research as the government has been cutting back on spending” (Walsh). Although this may be the case, they also report that The New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC) has been improperly caring for the chimps causing four of them to die between 2010 and 2012 (Walsh).

The decision to close NEPRC and the guidelines set in place by NIH are supported by the NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins stating, “chimps deserve special consideration and respect, they are simply too much like us to be used as lab animals” (Walsh). However, it is important to note that without the use of primates for medical research, there would be no evidence to support that AID’s is caused by a virus or the discovery of SIV (Walsh). With that said, is the use of animals for medical research ethical? How can one agree with both opposing views? It is evident that we are species that are morally derived with different views and opinions on life. As Emily Anthes stated perfectly, “biotechnology is not inherently good or bad; it is simply a set of techniques, and we have choices about how we employ them” (Anthes 2402/4526 ebook).

Resources:

Anthes, Emily. "Chapter 8: Beauty in the Beasts." Frankenstein's

Cat: Cuddling up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts. New York: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013. N. pag. Print.

Walsh, Bryan. "Science & Space." Science Space As Harvard

Closes a Primate Research Center Are Lab Chimps Becoming a Thing of the Past Comments. TIME.com, 24 Apr. 2013. Web. 7 Oct. 2013. <http://science.time.com/2013/04/24/as-harvard-closes-a-primate-research-center-are-lab-chimps-becoming-a-thing-of-the-past/>.