buav_statement_chimps_feb2012.pdf (application/pdf Object)

buav_statement_chimps_feb2012.pdf (application/pdf Object)




The Ban on the Use of Chimpanzees in Biomedical Research and Testing in the UK Should Be Made Permanent and Legally Binding

A joint submission to the Coalition Government
by the BUAV and FRAME

The Coalition Government is currently considering
how to transpose Directive
2010/63/EU on animal experimentation
into UK law. The Directive bans the use of
Great Apes in laboratories, but EU Member
States can seek (now or, more likely, at some
time in the future) a derogation from the
Commission to permit such use, where this
is considered essential for the preservation
of the species in question or in relation to an
unexpected outbreak of a life-threatening or
debilitating clinical condition in human
beings. Currently, the policy of the Government
is not to approve any experiments on
Great Apes, but it is possible that, at some
time in the future, researchers might ask the
then Government to seek permission via the
derogation clause.
The BUAV and FRAME jointly urge the Government to put this issue beyond doubt, by making
the ban on experiments on Great Apes permanent and legally binding, as would be permitted
by Article 2.1 of the Directive. This would be entirely justifiable on ethical, scientific, logistic
and economic grounds, as outlined in the supporting information below. Eliminating the possibility
of Great Ape experiments would be accepted, indeed welcomed, by both the scientific and
the animal welfare communities.
February 2012

 

 http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/photos/chimps/

 

 

 http://media.photobucket.com/image/chimpanzee/sweetdreams77/Chimpanzee.jpg?o=14

 

 

 

 Photograph from People Against Chimpanzee Experiments (PACE)
 

 

Michelle Thew
Jarrod Bailey
for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV)
16a Crane Grove
London N7 8NN, UK
e-mail: michelle.thew@buav.org
 

Michael Balls
Michelle Hudson for Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME)
96–98 North Sherwood Street
Nottingham NG1 4EE, UK
e-mail: michael.balls@btopenworld.com

1
Supporting Information

Public opinion and support for a ban

At present, chimpanzees are used in research only in the USA. Many other countries have banned, or at least severely restricted, research and testing involving chimpanzees, including the UK, which banned the licensing of Great Ape research in 1997. There is great public opposition to such use: the American public are twice as likely to support a ban on chimpanzee research as to oppose it, according to a public opinion survey carried
out in 2005 (1). In 2009 in the UK, 81% of the public agreed that experiments causing pain or sufferingto any non-human primates should be banned (2).
 

Ethical Considerations

In the UK, and now throughout the EU, the moral justification for conducting animal experiments is assessed via a cost/benefit analysis. The costs to the animal in terms of suffering, pain and distress must be outweighed by the potential benefits of the scientific outcomes to humans, animals or the environment for the proposed work to be permitted. The scientific information presented here provides strong evidence that the costs always far outweigh the benefits in the case of chimpanzee experiments, since the psychological and
physical harms to these animals profoundly exceed the minimal if any benefits accrued from the research. 

 

Inaddition to these examples the endangered status of all Great Apes must be taken in to account, with the threat of extinction being an additional cost that must be considered.

Psychological harm

Recent papers published in peer-review psychological journals demonstrate how chimpanzees used in research suffer from severe and lasting emotional trauma:
Humanity, Reason, and Justice: Law of Psychiatric Injury and the Bioethics of Great Ape Wellbeing (3)describes the application of American Psychiatric Association criteria, codified for assessing human mental states, to the evaluation of Great Ape psychological well-being. This nullifies scientific arguments that defend a double ethical and legal standard for how individual chimpanzees and human beings should be treated, as
it acknowledges psychiatric damage in Great Ape biomedical research subjects.

Building an Inner Sanctuary: Complex PTSD in Chimpanzees (4) is a clinical case study of the symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) shown by two chimpanzees used for several years in biomedical research, before reaching sanctuary. The findings show that chimpanzees in laboratories suffer from PTSD, just as humans do when they survive traumatic events. This paper’s findings confirm what is known from other studies, i.e. that it is virtually impossible to use chimpanzees in biomedical research without causing them extreme and lifelong psychological suffering.

Signs of Mood and Anxiety Disorders in Chimpanzees (5) describes how chimpanzees display behavioural clusters similar to PTSD and depression in their key diagnostic criteria, underscoring the importance of ethical considerations with regard to the use of chimpanzees in experimentation and in other captive settings.
 

Developmental Context Effects on Bicultural Post-Trauma Self Repair in Chimpanzees (6) examines the casehistories of three chimpanzees used in research before being rescued into sanctuary. The findings show that chimpanzees separated from their mothers and cross-fostered by humans, not only suffer from being used in research, but also have the compounded trauma of an identity crisis resulting in compromised ability tosocialise with other chimpanzees. This study provides further evidence of how many chimpanzees never fully recover from laboratory confinement and use, but continue to suffer from psychological problems, even in sanctuary.

Physical harm

Laboratory life also causes physical harm to chimpanzees (7). Individual chimpanzees are used repeatedly to obtain blood, serum, tissue, and other biological specimens, or in multiple protocols. 

 

Since captive chimpanzees can live an average of 55 years, this can mean decades of multiple experiments, knockdowns and other procedures. 

 

Centralisation and “recycling” chimpanzees into multiple research protocols adds to the
suffering of these highly sensitive and cognisant individuals. 

 

In hepatitis C research, for example, currently the major use of research chimpanzees, infected chimpanzees live in isolation in sterile biocontainment, where they are subjected to frequent blood withdrawal and other invasive procedures. 

 

In an experiment on hepatitis B in 2004, for example, each of three chimpanzees was anaesthetised with a dart gun 29 times during........

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http://www.frame.org.uk/dynamic_files/buav_statement_chimps_feb2012.pdf