Should chimps be used for medical testing?

just a little, just a little. You're a weepy guy. Yeah, there's like ten twelve years ago, and it's still it's worn off. Yeah, it's still melting though by degrees. Do you think it will melt forever? Every time I think of that little chimp holding my hand, it will melt a tiny bit. Why don't you just go buy a chimp and you can have it happen all the time. Dude, if I didn't have three dogs in two cats, I would have a chimp in my house. Would you really

even after that one story? Um, remember when we started blogging it happened that chimp or something. Yeah, I would because that was such a big deal that made the news. And I don't think it just that didn't happen all the time. Okay, I would totes have a chimp. When did you start talking like that? You're talking like my friend Adam and it's unvous. Oh yeah, I think it's funny. It's like that, like everything's abbreviated. Yeah, yeah, Emily, and not do that I totes on the totes train. Yeah

are you? I just think it's funny. Don't start saying natsch Okay, Oh that's old school, though I know. I still don't like it. All right, I never did toads. I can handle more than natch. Okay, Okay, you're ready, Yes, okay, Chuck. I want to tell you about a certain lady. Her name is Wenka okay, and she has kind of a rough life story. She was born into a family and this, or you might say, um. She was born in nineteen fifty four and when she was just two years old,

her mother died after being mistakenly poisoned. Her um mother's father, her grandfather, uh He was a morphine adict who died as a result of his addiction. Her grandmother, maternal grandmother died of dysentery um on. Her father said she was one of forty grandkids. You believe that she was adopted out at a very young age, but returned back home at age three. At fifteen fifteen, she had her first daughter, and her daughter was born with Down syndrome. She died

at seventeen months. Eventually, Winkle went on to have another boy, and a boy and another girl. Um, and here's the mind blowing part. She's a chimpanzee. Yes, I actually see that. I mean, and I know I was sitting there like, how is there a way to do this? At the top of the Chimp podcast. That's not somebody not know because it sounded like you were talking about a human story.

But think about all of the stuff that her family went through if they were humans, wouldn't she feel pretty bad for well, feel bad for Whanka to And here's why she is, as far as anyone knows, the oldest primate in captivity that's still being used for research. And she was here in Atlanta. Well, she's born in ninety and she's been experimented on ever since. She went back to the Yorkes Primate Institute at age three, and her

mom the one who was mistakenly poisoned. Was one of the original ones that yer Keys got his hands on in the what the forties, right, Well, in the twenties, yes, is Robert Yorke's started messing around with behavioral research, not as much medical research. No, And at first you think like, oh, well, that's that's way better. But if you have you looked into some of the behavioral experiments that they were conducting,

I'm sure it's not fun. So like one one young UM chimp from I believe for this, the first thirty six months of his life had UM like plastic or some sort of obstruction over his hands and his feet, so he couldn't use either of them for the first three years of life. A lot of social isolation, like chimps spent the first two or three years of life without seeing, hearing, touching anybody else's. Yes, very much so,

wasn't it Little Albert? Yeah, a little Albert was on a human though the fear conditioning UM the The equivalent to that was UM Harry Harlowe's experimentation of separating UM chimps from their mothers and then raising them with like wire and co and fake reconstructions UM that they would cling to and treat as their mother, because what he found from these experiments is that moms are really important.

That's the saddus thing I've ever heard. All Right, So we're talking about we started this off well, I mean, this isn't the brightest of topics, although the ending is fairly uplifting. Past headed that way, Yeah, we won't ruin it, so chuck, let me set you up here. Um, we have only just in the last few years come to to think that animals deserve some sort of um rights. Right. It's a very new idea, isn't it. It is new Ish? Okay, like maybe eighteenth century Newish. Yeah, England leads the way.

Our British friends um past the first anti cruelty laws against animals in well even before that, Jerry May Bentham he wrote a paper on how animals could possibly suffer and maybe we should start treating him differently late Sevre kudos to him. Yeah, and did you know that he is mummified and they bring his body out for uh some annual dinner dancing with the stars at the college. He's a judge at the College um where he was a professor. They bring his body out for dinner every year. Wow,

an't that crazy? It's a little weird. Well, good for him. Um still looks great, by the way, does he really? So? Peter didn't start until nineteen eighty A lot of people might think that Pete has been around like since the sixties. Fairly new, um. And then the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was started in eighteen sixty six, So pretty new in a world view, right, but a big picture specifically, and that's general animal rights. Yeah, but

chimps in particular. Um. There. I guess the idea that they may be deserve even more special rights than the average lab rat um is based on something that's also fairly recent, which is the discovery or the idea that we share a tremendous amount of similarity with them. There's no other animal that is closer to humans than chimps, right, Yeah, I think the number is just over DNA sequence of d N a face pairing. The other part. I can't

remember what it's called. Should have written that down. Well, no, that's very like people throw that out like chimps are similar to humans and that's very misleading. The like you said, the genetic sequence of the chromosomes that we share or that are similar in apes and humans are similar. We're not. It's not like if you our DNA and put it side by side, only two percent would be different. It's

not like that. And in fact, chimps have ten percent more DNA than humans do I really, So that's that's very misleaning to say. But the point is they are very genetically similar, probably more than any other animal. And we've known that since the twenties. Yeah, and similar enough to that at a certain point people said, you know what, We've experimented on human prisoners long enough and they say,

we can't do it anymore, which is a drag. So let's get these chimps in here and uh give them disease. And here we reached the title of the podcast. Um. There As as much as we would like to think that it is a very easy moral ethical question, like should chimps be used for medical research, it's not because if you, as we were saying before, if you like walking around not having polio or hepatitis B, yeah, um, you can go ahead and thank a chimp for volunteering.

I'm sorry, wait, that was the absolute worst for it. I could have used um for being a basically a test animal on those vaccines, UM and treatments. Uh. Same with contraceptives. Uh. If you like our understanding of addiction, you can thank chimps for that. For being a space animal, let's go ahead and call that out. That's where it all began. The US Air Force said, Hey, we got a space race going on. Let's go get some chimps from the wild. Shoot him up into space, put him

in sled cars, test g forces on him. See what can happen. Put him on the giz rocket sled. I guess what's his face was getting a little tired at that point. Yeah, I couldn't see because of all the blood pooled in his retiness. So um pre NASA, the Air Force went and got sick five chimpanzees from the wild, and a lot of these chimps are used today are descendants of those original chimps because they couldn't keep going

to get them. After the Site's Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species and seventy five, which basically said like, hey man, you can't just start going and grabbing chimpanzeezer other animals out of the wild. They're in danger. Exactly. So they started breeding these chimps, right they the ones that they already had. After SITES was passed, they said, okay, well we'll just start making them here in America, making

them made in America. And I did find it odd or not odd, but a little like distressing that some of those with a lot of these chimps today are descended from those original sixty because of breeding. And it makes sense. But who knew, Well the same with yer Keys, his primates that he had in the twenties, those original four that was the captive breeding program as well. I think he definitely supplemented them with um imports. Yeah, you know,

because it was prior to SITES. But he had you know, bread bread, He bred them, they bred, they bred, They did it um And like you pointed out, we should uh say that yr kis is now in Atlanta here in Emery University. After being in Florida for twenty some eighty years, they moved to Atlanta and sponsored by Yale before. Yeah, and they got two point five acres at the main station here in Atlanta and then in Lawrenceville just up the road they have the field station, a hundred and

seventeen acres of chimpanzee breeding and testing facilities. It's where chimps go to get their drugs. Chimpanzees are endangered, their native to Africa and uh because of their similarities, they thought, you know this HIV thing in the eighties, maybe we should start injecting these chimps and see how and if they develop AIDS. That's what changed everything. The combination of sites and the appearance of AIDS um combined with chimp similarity,

like really changed everything. We had a captive breeding program. The federal government sponsored it, and so it became very, very big and mysterious new disease. Yeah, the fear of AIDS and HIV was so enormous that they within just a few years of this captive breeding program that was started by the National Institutes of Health in I think maybe within a year two, there were I think five

chimps running around with HIV. The big problem was, as we soon found out that while they can carry HIV, and chimps are the only other animal besides humans that can contract HIV because cats have their own, dogs have their own um, other other apes and primates have their own, but only but only humans and chimps can have HIV um, we on the chimps don't get AIDS, they don't go they don't move into full blown AIDS. Yeah, at least not like humans do. And so it was kind of

a big failure on that front. And all the progress we've made on AIDS rechurch has been because of human experimentation basically or watching and seeing. Well, this is another way to put it. Uh nine six The Animal Well Welfare Act outline minimum care requirements for all animals and captivity. Right, So these chimps were, you know, before the site's program, the ones that they were importing, they still had some sort of protection, but it wasn't you know, there weren't

that many bells and whistles. It was pretty pretty Southwest Airlines not really Singapore air you know. Uh, I would thought you would have said, like Virgin Atlantic or something. Singapore are really nice. Really, it's up there with like Emirates, Emirates Singapore Japan Airlines is pretty nice to concord. Remember that, Yeah, we should do one on that. Do you remember the time that Phil Collins played a show in London and then Flute was it for live and he played two

shows and two different continents within each other. Awesome, Thank you Concord, Thank you Phil Collins. Yeah, well, I thought that might go without saying. I can just open my shirt and shraining my t shirt to say that. And by the way, that's a huge urban legend that he saw his girlfriends rapist in the audience drowning not true. Makes for a good story though. Yeah. All right, getting

back to Animal Welfare Act. You said it was didn't have the bells and whistles, said temperatures had to stay between forty and eighty five degrees fahrenheit, not bad, keep him comfortable, Uh, gotta give him food and water. Gotta isolate the sick ones, even though you can get a waiver on that if they're supposed to be sick among their their friends. Imagine that wasn't too hard to get

that exception. And um, basically it applied to all chimpanzees were both biomedical and behavioral research, which was good, and all animals, any animal that's being experimented on, any warm blooded animals or in captivity period. Okay, like I think

it had just applied to zoos and everything, gotcha, that's good. Yeah, So we had that in place in sixty six sites came along in seventy five, the chimpanzee breeding program came along in and then when that collapsed and failed, UM, the US government was like, oh, what are we gonna do here? We've got literally hundreds of chips running around with HIV there like if they come in contact with people, especially sickos, they could spread right well and they don't

live to be twelve, no, sixty. Yeah, So that's and they cost some money to you know, hows and fifteen bucks a day, So it doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up. That adds up, especially when um there was only about I think five hundred that had HIV, but there was something on the order of like twelve the undred that were that the government was responsible for.

And it wasn't just the failure of the HIV AIDS studies. Uh. You can thank Jane Goodall um and groups like Peter and the s p c A in the Humane Society in the early eighties around this time when chimp research was really at its peak, UM for kind of a learning the public to the cruelty of animal testing and research. The Army of the Twelve Monkeys. Yeah, you can thank them, I did. It was Uh, we should talk a little bit about the the Kalston or Colston Foundation um that

is now defunct. It was shut down in two thousand two. And here's the deal. Uh, it's controversial depending on who you asked. Frederick Colston was the guy who was a toxicologist who helped develop tree meant for malaria and hepatitis B and AIDS or it was a house of horrors and he performed experiments on human prisoners and then moved

to chimps. And uh, you know when one test chimps had their teeth smashed in with a steel ball so they could practice reconstructed reconstructed dental surgery, nine three chimps were cooked to death when the temperature in there and this is New Mexico and their unmonitored enclosure topped a hundred and forty degrees And since n three chimps and I think forty like forty five animals and all died quote unintended deaths at the Colston Foundation. So you know,

it sounds like some awful, awful thing going on. But then again, he's developing these treatments for these awful diseases, so it's a very dicey situation. But they were shut down in two thousand two because uh, negligent care on a lot of fronts and any any I mean, there's there are plenty of people who have like a really

good um there. They have really good ground to stand on by saying like any animal testing is bad and it doesn't matter how well you treat these animals, like shouldn't be experimenting on where they put on this earth to test to save humans. Some people back that. Some people don't write UM. So oh you know, very recently I saw UM. There was some researcher associated with the

Center for Great Apes. Yeah, yeah, apparently there's like a number of them, uh, and one of them is in Des Moines, and apparently somebody slashed the heels of UM an infant chimp to keep it from being able to stand upright. And this is like December, like a couple of months ago. So one of the one of the researchers acted as a whistleblower. Yeah, um or for a test, not that I don't think that was the I don't think that was the experiment. I think it was related

to it. But one of the researchers there was like, I'm getting this chimp and all the rest of them out of here and taking them down to another center for grade eights UM, the main one in Florida. Yeah, well, just to finish up on the Coulson Foundation. The good news is, as of two thousand ten, about half of the TCF chimps are now living at Save the Chimps, which is basically where you want to be if you're a retired chimp. Swinging, playing, running around, eating bananas, holding hands,

all that good chimp stuff. So well, let's talk about this. That's the result of a sea change that was started by Jane Goodall and and Peter and UM, a lot of the Animal Liberation Front UM and Matthew Broderick. Yeah, what was the name of that Project X? And interestingly, real quick I just saw today. I didn't realize this Project X was a movie that raised awareness for mistreatment of chimps, obviously in medical reas, but Bob Barker at

the time accused them of mistreating animals on the set. Yeah, here's a huge, huge animal cruelty guys. And he got sued for defamation for that really yeah, and settled out of court, actually against his wishes. He settled out of court because he still believed that they were mistreated and like said that they were like clubs and billy clubs and batons used and they used like a snake to scare the chimps and stuff to get reactions. Yeah, but that was just a joke. That was just a you know,

a prank on set in between takes. But yeah, projects go to see it, Hele and Hunt, go see it in your in the theater near you in your time machine. Did you see the Ferrespeuler commercial at the I saw it out of the corner of my eye at the superb Owl. Were you disgusted? Uh? I was looking forward to it because I heard about it beforehand and it was it was pretty bad. Yeah. Hey man, he's got to support his kids. Oh dude, I'm sure he made

a mint good for him. Um. So, okay. We were talking about Matthew Broderick in his career UM, which led directly to a sea change in how people feel about animal testing and specifically about chimpanzee testing UM, which is kind of evidenced by the fact that Congress and its endless ability to pass legislation with qut si names and acronyms. This one was surprised me even in two thousand, Congress pens the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance and Protection Act. And

guess what that spells out, chimp. Yeah, they passed the Chimp Act in two thousand and Basically this said your captive breeding program was gone once a chimp is retired from biomedical testing or behavioral testing. I believe too, you are. You can't kill it, sorry, all those um monkeys running around with HIV, you can't euthanize them. You have to provide for their care for the rest of their lives

and natural natural lives, which is pretty cool. It's bad enough that given them HIV, at least care for them. But this extends only as far as I know to UM. Federally funded chimp programs, pharmaceutical companies that own it's federally funded in pharmaceutical companies. All the chimps in the United

States are owned by them. That aren't pets, I should say, um, they pharmacutic companies exist outside of this act, of course, So Josh, if I were to ask you how many countries in the world in the world still experiment on chimpanzees legally, what would be I would say? Since the United States, since a um, it's such a standard bearer of human rights and animal rights. Sure that if the United States still allows it, at least ninety two a

hundred and five other countries allow testing on chimpanzees. Am I right, you did a very good job of playing them there. By the way, uh No, United States and Gabon are the only two countries in the world that's still performed biomedical testing on chimpanzees. Great Britain said no more. Uh. Netherlands in two thousand two. I can't even speak Dutch. That would be a travesty. Uh, Sweden in two thousand three, Austria two thousand six, Japan two thousand six. Everyone said,

we're drawn a line in the sand. United States still allows it. But two months ago, three months ago, December of last year, big news, the n i H suspended all new grants awesome for biomedical and behavioral research on chimps or apes the great the great apes um which by the chimps, the great apes are chimps, guerrillas, bona bows, and orangutanes. Correct um. So they suspended all new grants.

That doesn't mean that you can't test anymore. They basically established some pretty rigorous criteria moving forward, which means it's got to be necessary for human health and there must be no other possible way to accomplish it. And basically it's kind of being looked at as the beginning of the end because they're finding that nowadays, with cultures and cellular research, you don't need to experiment on chips anymore.

You can find out all you need to know Petrie dish. Yeah, the n I H said, hey, um, over the next four years, we're gonna hypercharge our biomedical testing. So we so we, like you said, it can just exist in the Petrie dish from now and we don't have to well, basically, single celled animals that are going to start to bear the broad no far our desire ceaseless quest for immortality health. But you can't hold the hand of an amiba. No, but if you could, I'll bet it would melt you.

Hepatitis apparently is one of two areas that they think it could still be useful for. And um, but it sounds like they're genuinely phasing it out. That's great, it's about time. After that it'll just be on gabone. So hats off to places like Save the chimps and what were some of the other ones. Uh, the Center for Great Apes, which by the way, I don't want to defame them at all, not even for legal reasons, like they do a good job. Um. I looked them up.

I looked up Save the Chimps, UM, Chimp Haven, the Grade eight Project. I found one in Massachusetts. And if you go on some of like the charity watches and and ratings sites. Um, there's nothing bad for them, except for the fact that they haven't filed with the I r S even though they should for some reason. That This Morning Star doesn't have anything on them. The Golden laptops, but they they um, all of them seem to be legit.

But the Grade eight Project, the one that's mentioned in this UM article that lobbies on behalf of the Great Apes for testing and basically animal all right, they're located in Brazil. Um, but keep thinking you're saying grape ape. Yeah, the Great Pape Project, the Center for Grade Apes is bona fide and good too. I couldn't find much on anything that seemed to smack of like the Colston Foundation or anything like that. Yeah. Well, the Colston Colston Foundation

actually morphed into uh, save the chimps. Okay, so yeah, yeah, that's in Florida, right yeah. Fort Pierce along with Chimp Have then and the Fauna Foundation. Um there you know they're chimp sanctuaries. It's a nice thing. Yeah, so I guess go there, give him some money, ask in exchange, um for a chimp to hold your hand. Um, do not feed chimps antidepressants and keep them at your house? Is that what happened to the one? Yeah? Remember the

woman was like, yeah, he's on anidepressants. He he he shouldn't have done this, And everybody's like, wait, what did you just say? She's like nothing, do you remember? I don't remember the anti depressants. Yeah, it came out like a coach onlike the Today Show or something like days after. She was like, I had him on anti pressants. I don't know what happened. She was messed up too well she oh yeah she was. It was pretty gnarmly. Oh

the yeah the victim, Yeah yeah that was something man. Okay, well, um, we were all over the place there. If you can figure out where we where we stand on this, hats off to you. You got anything else about chimps? Great apes are the Four Great apes, chimpanzees and orangutang's uh maccaws, that's a bird, my Cobbs, No, uh, Clint Eastwood, that's everywhere, way but loose. That's an orangutan right now, right turn Clyde Bonabo, bona bos or bonobo uh, orangutans, gorillas, and chimps.

That's right. In humans, Zippy the Chimp was my favorite toy growing up. I had a little hand you could squeeze and it made a little squeaky noise. So yeah, that was my favorite little toy. Zippy the Chimp. Awesome. I bet you I can get one an eBay, okay, because mine is probably, you know, disintegrated. Because I'm ninety, I'm glad somebody finally said, um, okay, well that's it for chimps. Then. I was not expecting you to mention

that when I said, if you do you have anything else? Yeah, I just actually I just remembered about Zippy the Chimp first time I thought about that twenty some years. Okay. Um. If you want to learn more about chimps and biomedical testing, including the delightfully named Chimp Act of two thousand, you can type in uh, what's it called chuck what happens

to chimps? Used the medical research or any one of those Christen Conger right, yeah, she wrote, both of the ones who recorded today this Hey Conger day in the search bart how stuff works dot com and if let's see, I said how stuffworks dot com and search bar right now. So, of course, as ever, without interruption or fail, it's time for a listener and mail. Except what there's interruption and fail? What? Uh? You wanted to talk about our million U? What is

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