Please contact:

Dr. Francis Collins, Director
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20892

francis.collins@nih.gov
301-496-2433

Ask him to reconsider NIH’s misguided decision to transfer the Alamogordo chimpanzees and to retire them instead. Remind him that chimpanzees deserve the safety and comforts of sanctuary and that U.S. taxpayers deserve better decision making on how our precious dollars are spent.

To help us track our progress please log your call to Dr. Collins’s Office.

If you are a constituent of New Mexico, please call your Senators/Representative

Here are some points to consider:

• Thank them for their leadership in New Mexico and for sharing the compassionate values of their constituents.
• Make them aware that the NIH’s National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) plans to move over 180 chimpanzees out of the Alamogordo Primate Facility to a lab in Texas to be available for research.
• Tell them you object because published studies have documented the enormous suffering chimpanzees endure in laboratory life and use. What’s more, the research of geneticist Dr. Jarrod Bailey and others have shown that the past 30 years of using chimpanzees to study AIDS, cancer, hepatitis C, and other diseases has failed to provide breakthroughs in prevention, treatment or cures for humans. The business of chimpanzee laboratory housing and use is a waste of tax dollars and time. NIH/NCRR must be held accountable.
• Remind them that the U.S. is virtually the last nation using chimpanzees in invasive research and that chimpanzees are a unique part of New Mexico history. New Mexico now has a chance to give these individuals peace and dignity while keeping jobs in the state.
• Ask them to please stand up for what’s right before it’s too late — keep the Alamogordo Primate Facility chimpanzees in New Mexico, help permanently retire them, and turn APF into a model sanctuary of chimpanzee care.

Who to contact:

NM Senators:
Sen. Jeff Bingaman: (202) 224-5521
Sen. Tom Udall: (202) 224-6621

NM Representatives:
Congressional District 1 (Northern New Mexico): Rep. Ben Ray Luján: (202) 225-6190
Congressional District 2 (Central New Mexico): Martin Heinrich: (202) 225-6316
Congressional District 3 (Southern New Mexico): Rep. Harry Teague: (202) 225-2365

To get involved in local efforts on behalf of the chimpanzees at APF, go to apnm.org/chimps.