Yahoo – AFP,
19 Nov 2015
Washington (AFP) - Chimpanzees will no longer be used for US government research and the remaining 50 chimps in federal custody will be sent to a sanctuary for retirement, health authorities said.
Captive chimpanzees were listed as endangered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service last year (AFP Photo/Yasuyoshi Chiba) |
Washington (AFP) - Chimpanzees will no longer be used for US government research and the remaining 50 chimps in federal custody will be sent to a sanctuary for retirement, health authorities said.
The
decision by the National Institutes of Health came two and a half years after
the agency announced it would phase out most of its biomedical research using
chimpanzees, which are humans' closest living relative and share 98 percent of
the same genes.
Since 2013,
no new applications for research using chimps have been approved, and last
year, captive chimps were listed as endangered by the US Fish and Wildlife
Service.
The NIH
said the endangered designation requires researchers to obtain an extra permit
for any experiments that could harm the animal, and that no such permits have
been sought.
"As a
result of these numerous changes over the last few years and the significantly
reduced demand for chimpanzees in NIH-supported biomedical research, it is
clear that we've reached a tipping point," NIH director Francis Collins
said in a statement.
"In
accordance with NIH's commitment in June 2013, I have reassessed the need to
maintain chimpanzees for biomedical research and decided that effective
immediately, NIH will no longer maintain a colony of 50 chimpanzees for future
research."
The
NIH-owned chimps are "now eligible for retirement" at the Federal
Sanctuary System operated by Chimp Haven in Keithville, Louisiana, Collins
said.
The NIH
said it will continue to use other non-human primates for research.
US government ends research on all chimpanzees https://t.co/Wajxh6J4IC pic.twitter.com/xtXycl4zaX
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) November 19, 2015
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