From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:


Chimp Retirement Act runs afoul of NIH monkey-business

WASHINGTON D.C.--Alleged monkey-business involving the Florida vote
count in the November 7 U.S. presidential election may have thwarted
monkey-business by amendment in the House of Representatives to the
Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance and Protection Act of 2000.
Called the "Chimp Retirement Act" for short, the amended bill
cleared the House on October 24, but was deemed unlikely to get Senate
attention when it didn't reach the floor before the election recess.
The odds that it would be brought up for a vote after the election
grew slim after uncertainty over the voting results caused Congress to
recess again on November 15. Scheduled to reconvene for probably the last
time on December 5, the 106th Congress is expected to pass only mandatory
budget and trade treaty bills before dissolving.
A second major piece of nonhuman primate protection legislation,
the Great Ape Conservation Act of 2000, did clear the 106th Congress, and
on November 1 was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Relatively
uncontroversial, except to some ideological opponents of any foreign aid,
the Great Ape Conservation Act allocates $5 million a year in grants to
wildlife agencies and nonprofit organizations to encourage the protection
of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans in their native
habitat.
The Great Ape Conservation Act won passage amid growing mass media
attention to the growing central African traffic in bush meat, including
nonhuman primates who are hunted for human consumption. A further boost
came in September 2000 from the reported extinction of Miss Waldron's red
columbus monkey, a species once common to the eastern Ivory Coast and
western Ghana.
Identified in 1936, Miss Waldron's red colubus was last seen alive
during the 1970s. It is now the first known primate extinction since the
19th century, but the Primate Specialist Group within the World
Conservation Union anticipates that about 25% of all primate species could
go extinct within the next 30 years, chiefly through the combination of
bush meat hunting with logging and fires that destroy habitat.

CRA will be back

The Chimp Retirement Act of 2000 may be dead, but is almost
certain to be revived in the 107th Congress. Introduced in November 1999
by Representative Jim Greenwood (R-Pa.) with eight co-sponsors, the
version brought before the 106th Congress paralleled bill introduced by
Greenwood during the 105th Congress. But this time it also came with a
Senate companion bill, introduced in June 2000 by Senator Robert C. Smith
(R-N.H.)
As originally drafted and expected to pass, both the House and
Senate versions of the Chimp Retirement Act would have authorized the
National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and other
U.S. government agencies to fund the retirement to nonprofit sanctuaries of
any chimps who are surplus to anticipated research needs.
The chimps, once retired, were not to be bred and not to be
recalled to invasive research use. They could, however, continue to be
part of non-invasive behavioral research, and studies might be performed
on them in connection with normal veterinary care.
The Chimp Retirement Act was advanced as offering a win/win
proposition to all interested parties. Research facilities would get out
from under some of the burden of keeping chimps; animal protection groups
would get the chance to save some chimps from vivisection, and would even
get some of the funding necessary to do it.
Several sanctuaries are already providing lifetime care to
ex-research chimps, including Primarily Primates, which just completed
five new buildings to house a colony of 75 (a few of whom came from sources
other than labs); Wildlife Waystation, with about 50 chimps; and the
Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care, with 20. All, however, have
struggled to accommodate the chimps they have, and would be hard-pressed
to take more without significant financial help.
The Chimp Retirement Act was accordingly welcomed and heavily
touted by most major animal advocacy organizations. Primatologist Jane
Goodall lent the bill her strong endorsement.
But as the Chimp Retirement Act seemed to be on the verge of
passage, Coalition to End Primate Experimentation and Primate Freedom Tour
cofounder Linda Howard smelled something not quite right about it--even
before it was amended.
"For over a decade," Howard explained to anyone would listen,
"the U.S. government funded five facilities under the Chimpanzee Health
Improvement Mainten-ance Program to breed chimpanzees for research. The
funded facilities were the Primate Foundation of Arizona; the Coulston
Foundation; and the NIH regional primate research colonies at New Iberia,
Louisiana; Bastrop, Texas; and Athens, Georgia.
"When it became apparent that AIDS/HIV research using chimpanzees
was a failure," since few chimps are susceptible to HIV, "laboratory
demand for chimpanzees crashed. At that point," Howard added, "all
federally-funded facilities were ordered to observe a five-year moratorium
on breeding, including those which were funded exclusively as breeding
facilities.
"About a year and a half ago the NIH announced that the CHIMP
program would be discontinued and replaced, and that the new program would
fund up to three facilities. No one knew what this new program would
entail and there was much speculation," Howard said, "about which of the
five CHIMP program facilities would be re-funded in the new program."

EMBRC

The new program, called EMBRC as acronym for
Establishment/Maintenance of Biomedical Research Colony, was "launched at
the beginning of September 2000," Howard continued. "Chimp research and
breeding is mandated for New Iberia and Bastrop, and the Primate
Foundation of Arizona is subcontracted by New Iberia. Keep in mind,"
Howard cautioned, "that the abstract for this program has neither been
approved nor publicized. Neither has the budget been passed through the
Health and Human Services appropriations bill of the 106th Congress.
Regardless," Howard insisted, citing her findings through extensive
contacts within the primate research community, "the National Center for
Research Resources [a division of NIH] is already shelling out money for
EMBRC.
"Why is federally funded chimp breeding being initiated at the same
time that Congress attempts to bail the research community out of the
surplus chimp problem that they created?" Howard asked.
And Howard supplied an answer: "Once cages currently imprisoning
chimpanzees are empty, and labs are freed from the cost of maintaining
chimps, more primates can be brought in. Before the announcement of
EMBRC," Howard said, "I imagined that macaques would replace the chimps.
Now it seems that biomedical researchers are attempting, at least in
part, to replace their old used-up chimps with baby chimps."
The babies, unlike many of the chimps bred in the 1980s, will not
have been exposed to HIV and other infections which might compromise
research results and the safety of human handlers--even if the diseases
don't harm the chimps themselves.

NIH wanted more

But the NIH wanted even more than the Chimp Retirement Act as
introduced was to offer: it wanted the ability to recall "retired" chimps
to lab use if researchers ever wanted them, and it wanted to keep within
the biomedical research community the money earmarked for nonprofit
sanctuary care.
NIH principal deputy director Ruth L. Kirschstein, M.D.,
initiated the grab in an October 16 letter to key members of the House and
Senate:
"The NIH is implementing a plan to provide long-term care for 288
chimpanzees that are infected with HIV, hepatitis, or both," Kirschstein
opened, presenting a case that the NIH itself should be the long-term
custodian, via subcontractors, for these and other chimps who are retired
from research.
The 288 chimps involved are among about 650 housed by the Coulston
Foundation in Alamagordo, New Mexico. The NIH assumed financial
responsibility for the 288 in May 2000, as Coulston reportedly teetered
near bankruptcy. This solved two problems for Coulston, at least
temporarily, as in August 1999 Coulston had agreed to divest itself of 300
chimps to settle alleged repeated violations of Animal Welfare Act care and
housing standards.
After the NIH stepped in, Coulston Foundation applied for NIH
funding to continue to look after the chimps, but was turned down about a
week before Kirschstein wrote.
"These animals are not candidates for a sanctuary," Kirschstein
continued, "because their persistent infections pose a significant health
threat to caretakers and uninfected animals. They also have unique health
problems that require special care not generally available in sanctuaries.
Under the plan, these chimpanzees may be returned to research, if the need
arises. Thus, the plan meets the needs of research, while providing
humane care for the animals.
"We believe that permanent retirement of these chimpanzees is
unwise," Kirschstein continued. "In addition, permanent retirement would
represent poor stewardship of the already substantial investment in these
animals by the NIH.
"We request that you delay legislative action on this issue until
we have had a chance to discuss with Congress our proposed long-term care
plan," Kirschstein finished.
By the time the Chimp Retirement Act cleared the House, just eight
days later, the NIH had almost everything it wanted.
The only thing NIH didn't have, memos leaked to ANIMAL PEOPLE
indicated, was a crushing humiliation of animal rights groups. Most of
the major groups had already sent out mass mailings in support of the Chimp
Retirement Act, and could thereby claim "victory" if it passed in any
form.
"We're not talking about chimp sanctuaries any longer," Howard
warned. "We're talking about off-site storage."
"I will never accept a chimp under these circumstances," wrote
Wild Animal Orphanage founder Carol Asvestas, who is already giving
lifetime care to more than 300 ex-research primates, including six chimps.

In Defense of Animals withdrew support of the Chimp Retirement Act
on October 25. Friends of Animals circulated a statement of opposition by
Rutgers University law professor Gary Francione on November 6.
But Jane Goodall, Rattling The Cage author Stephen Wise, the
Humane Society of the U.S., and the Animal Welfare Institute, among
others, continued to support the amended bill as the best that they
thought could be obtained. --M.C.