AR-News: Animal rights leaders condemn U.S. chimp labs

[=?windows-1255?B?8e7j+A==?=]

From:primfocus at waste.org

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=3740
Animal rights leaders condemn U.S. chimp labs
By Max Heuer
Monday, April 26, 2004

Animal rights advocates yesterday told about 100 Hub activists harrowing
tales of chimpanzee treatment in research laboratories in North America and
demanded the practice be stopped.

     ``The U.S. is the only active user of chimps in research,'' said
Theodora Capaldo, president of the New England Anti-Vivisection Society.

     ``If you've lived alone in a cage for 15 years ... it's a horrifying
experience,'' said Gloria Grow, director of the Fauna Foundation, a Canadian
animal sanctuary, during her lecture ``In Their Own Words: Stories of
Chimpanzees Rescued from Research.''

     Annie, a motherly chimpanzee described as a ``leader,'' lost use of her
legs and later died at the center after she was a subject in menstrual and
hormonal experimentation.

     ``I can never talk about her,'' a tearful Grow said. ``When Annie
passed away, life ... really changed.''

     Pablo, another chimpanzee, died at Fauna after HIV experimentation and
more than 30 liver punches and bone-marrow biopsies.

     Primates have been used in head crash and radiation testing, syphilis
and HIV injections and ebola research, Capaldo said.

     In 1997, Fauna took in 15 HIV-positive chimpanzees, many of which now
suffer from arthritis and social problems. The center uses a
``chimp-whisperer'' to introduce the primates to each other as part of the
facility's ``resocialization'' program.

      There are about 1,300 chimps in U.S. labs, Capaldo said.




the wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. he is in front of it - axel munthe

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated citizens can change the world. 
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."      Margaret Mead
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040426/37738334/attachment.html