Challenge Issue Biological similarities among humans, apes, and Old World
monkeys have led to the extensive use of nonhuman primate species in biomedical
research aimed at preventing or curing disease in humans. These research animals
are subjected to procedures that would be considered morally questionable if done
on humans. Mickey, for example, was one of the hundreds of chimps who spent de-
cades of her life alone in a concrete-and-steel windowless cage in a private research
facility in New Mexico run by Frederick Coulston. After years of testing the effects of
various infectious diseases, cosmetics, drugs, and pesticides on chimps like Mickey,
the Coulston laboratory finally closed in 2002 when government research funding
was withdrawn due to repeated violations of the Animal Welfare Act. But after years
of abuse and neglect, research chimpanzees lack the skills to participate in chimpan-
zee social life. Furthermore, research animals have often been infected with deadly
diseases such as HIV or hepatitis and cannot be released into the wild. Fortunately,
Mickey and the other research chimps were given sanctuary through Save the Chimps,
one of several organizations that rescue research animals. The human challenge for
the future will be to use our abundant intelligence and social conscience, traits that
our closest relatives also possess, to make the development of alternative research
methods a top priority, so that nonhuman primates no longer have to be victimized
by biomedical research.
Courtesy of Save the Chimps, the world’s largest sanctuary for rescued chimpanzees; http://www.savethechimps.org