Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
immediate interest in using available chimpanzees to test
a variety of approaches to prevent and treat AIDS. Officials
at the NIH and others with concerns about the limited
numbers of chimpanzees available for research in the USA,
about 1300, quickly came to two conclusions. First, there
were probably insufficient chimpanzees in the USA to meet
the potential research needs. Second, if used for such
purposes, there would soon be no suitable chimpanzees left
for breeding.
Responding to these concerns, the NIH Director in 1985
allocated $4.5 million for AIDS research to establish the
Chimpanzee Breeding and Research Program (CBRP)
(
Johnsen, 1987
). The program was one element of the
NCMP that had been developed earlier by the IPSC. The
NCMP probably would have gone unnoticed and unfunded
if it had not been for AIDS. In addition, the PHS AIDS
Animal Models Committee was established at the NIH. The
committee was charged with overseeing and approving the
assignment of chimpanzees for AIDS research projects
sponsored by PHS agencies. The committee review process
helped slow the rush to use scarce chimpanzees. The NIH's
DRR made five awards in 1986 to support chimpanzee
breeding. These were at the Primate Foundation of Arizona
in Mesa, New Mexico State University's Primate Research
Institute at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamagordo, the
University of Texas System's Center in Bastrop (later the
Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and
Research), the Gulf South Research Institute in New Iberia,
Louisiana (later the New Iberia Research Center of the
University of Louisiana at Lafayette), and the Yerkes
Primate Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The breeding program
included many of the chimpanzees earlier identified as
available and suitable for breeding in the USA (
Johnson,
1982
). Plans called for the program to produce about 60
offspring each year, with about half of these to be retained
for future breeding. The remaining offspring were to be
assigned on a priority basis for AIDS research, if needed.
Establishment of the CBRP was controversial. Animal
rights organizations and individuals such as Jane Goodall
actively campaigned against the program. They argued that
the increased need for chimpanzees would threaten the
survival of wild populations in Africa. They further claimed
chimpanzees were inappropriate models for AIDS research
because experimental infections did not result in disease.
Letters poured into the NIH through congressional repre-
sentatives from constituents demanding explanations.
Yielding to pressure from wildlife protectionists, the
United States Department of Interior did decide in 1989, as
a result of continued habitat destruction and predation in
Africa, to declare the chimpanzee as endangered species in
its natural habitat and ended their importation into the
USA. However, in recognition of the success of domestic
breeding and conservation, chimpanzees were listed only as
threatened in the USA.
The CBRP was very effective in producing chimpan-
zees. Nearly 400 offspring had been produced by 1997
(
Cohen, 2007
). However, the research need for the animals,
particularly in AIDS research, never materialized. Scien-
tific need aside, fewer research sponsors and investigators
were willing to pay the cost of using chimpanzees,
including their high purchase price and $25 to $35 per diem
charges at that time. In addition, ethical concerns led the
NIH to adopt a policy that banned euthanizing chimpanzees
no longer needed for research. This essentially mandated
life-long care. At least one institution reportedly started
charging a variable user's fee calculated to cover the cost of
providing such lifetime care that in some cases could
exceed $100 000 (T. M. Butler, personal communication,
2010). By 1995 the NIH had placed a temporary morato-
rium on breeding and soon thereafter asked the ILAR to
investigate the myriad of issues associated with the use
of chimpanzees in biomedical and behavioral research.
Its report was published in 1997 (
National Research
Council, 1997
).
Recommendations in the NRC report included
continuing the breeding moratorium for five more years,
supporting the NIH's ban on euthanasia, and calling for the
establishment of a multi-agency organizational unit, The
Chimpanzee Management Program (ChiMP) within the
Office of the Director, NIH. This office was subsequently
assigned by the NIH to the Comparative Medicine Program
within the NCRR. The NRC report also recommended that
a core population of approximately 1000 chimpanzees
should be assured lifetime support by the federal govern-
ment, and that ownership and responsibility for maintaining
these animals should be transferred to the government.
As the NRC recommendations were beginning to be
implemented in 1997, the US Air Force divested itself of its
chimpanzees to the Coulston Foundation in Alamagordo,
New Mexico, and to two nonprofit sanctuaries, Primarily
Primates in San Antonio, Texas, and the Center for Captive
Care in Boynton Beach, Florida. In 1999, ownership of 300
of the Coulston Foundation chimps was transferred to the
NIH, and a contract was issued to Charles River Labora-
tories for the new Alamagordo Primate Research Facility to
function as an NIH “reserve” chimpanzee colony.
As the 20th century drew to a close, small numbers of
chimpanzees continued to be needed for the research for
which they had typically been used, for example, viral
hepatitis and the pharmaceutical industry's special needs
for developing and testing new products.
Virus, Zoonotic Diseases, and AIDS Provide the
Stimulus for Specific Pathogen Free Breeding
Through the approximately 50 years that followed the first
report of clinical infection in a laboratory worker, at least
43 laboratory-verified cases of human infection with
