Television Director and Producer Dennis Erdman and Fundraiser for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine - WSJ.com

by MELANIE GRAYCE WEST

An effort to end invasive medical experiments on chimpanzees will pick up steam Saturday during a fundraiser to benefit the Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

The event, co-hosted by television director and producer Dennis Erdman and actor Alec Baldwin, among others, will be held at the Amagansett, L.I., home of John Bradham.
The issue is something that came to Mr. Erdman a few years ago after watching video footage of chimpanzees in labs. He says he was shocked to learn that "nonhuman primates" are used for biomedical research. "The suffering and cruelty and terror that the animals are exposed to is horrific," says Mr. Erdman, a New Yorker.

Television director and producer Dennis Erdman is co-hosting a Saturday fundraiser to benefit the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Some animal-rights advocates and people in the research community have championed federal legislation that they say would save tax dollars, end experiments on chimpanzees, release chimpanzees to sanctuaries and prevent further breeding of chimpanzees for testing.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is among groups championing this effort and Mr. Erdman has donated $25,000 toward supporting the charity's continuing work to end testing on chimpanzees.

PCRM estimates that between 2000 and 2010, some $200 million in federal money was spent on chimpanzee experiments. The organization says there are over 900 chimpanzees warehoused in government-owned and supported laboratories, with only about 10% used in lab research. Chimpanzees are housed in facilities in Louisiana, Texas, Georgia and New Mexico, according to PCRM.

The bipartisan bill that would end experiments on chimpanzees was approved earlier this month by the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works.
Mr. Erdman says he has been an advocate for animal rights for many years, working to introduce friends and colleagues in the entertainment industry to some of the issues. Mr. Erdman has been active in an effort to ban the use of dog and cat fur—which is sometimes used in apparel manufacturing—in Europe. He says that key to making animal-rights issues relevant to the average person is celebrity endorsement.

"The general public will tend to respond if they are hearing it from an actor, actress or athlete," he says.

Chimpanzees and humans share much of the same DNA and Mr. Erdman acknowledges that it is because of that reason many people might not bristle about the use of chimpanzees in experiments. But, he says, that is the very reason why chimpanzees "should not be exposed to torture and cruelty."

"I just feel you don't do anything to a nonhuman primate that you wouldn't do to a 3-year-old child," says Mr. Erdman. "Aside from the moral, ethical and humane reasons, primates are the most expensive animals to use in research."


Write to Melanie Grayce West at melanie.west @wsj.com

A version of this article appeared August 25, 2012, on page A19 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Producer Pushes to Protect Primates.

Television Director and Producer Dennis Erdman and Fundraiser for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine - WSJ.com

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