NIH advised to retire most research chimps: Agency decision expected in March

摘要

The National Institutes of Health is expected to announce a decision later this March on the future of hundreds of federally owned chimpanzees used in research funded by the agency. Earlier this year, an independent advisory committee recommended mostof the 451 chimpanzees be retired to the federal sanctuary system and a colony of approximately 50 animals be maintained for possible future research.needs. The committee also urged the NIH to end nearly half the 30 studies involving chimpanzees the agency is currently supporting. These studies, hich include biomedical, behavioral, and comparative genomics projects, were determined to fall short of the rigorous criteria the NIH adopted after a 2011 Institute of Medicine review found little scientific necessity for using chimps as research subjects.