April 29, 2011 • Posted in Project R&R News
The debate about the use of chimpanzees in medical testing and research continues to heat up. Most recently, three powerful articles by investigative reporter Chris Adams on the plight of chimpanzees in research appeared in newspapers throughout the nation, in a series entitled “Chimps: Life in A Lab.”
Adams worked long and hard to report the reality behind Chimps in a Lab. As a key resource, he contacted NEAVS and held extensive interviews with NEAVS president, Dr. Theo Capaldo and NEAVS Science Director, Dr. Jarrod Bailey. His investigations seemed to have left no stone unturned including utilizing the Project R&R: Release and Restitution website releasechimps.org and referencing NEAVS’ 2009 paper on post-traumatic stress disorder in chimpanzees from laboratories.
Relying on thousands of pages of medical records for the chimpanzees now housed at the Alamogordo Primate Facility, Adams recounts their physical and mental suffering from use in experiments and confinement in labs. His stories are grim, and his content emotionally charged as he reveals the toll taken by invasive research and by the crushing realities of decades of life in a lab.
Too often, the physical and mental anguish of animals in labs goes unseen and unreported. This timely and substantive reporting is invaluable, and will get thousands of readers nationwide thinking and feeling about chimpanzees and the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act now before the American public that would end their use. Because of Adams and others like him who are bringing the debate squarely before the American public, that public’s decision to support an end to chimpanzee research (or not) will be better informed with an inside look at chimpanzees’ lives in a lab.
To read the full story by Chris Adams, go to mcclatchydc.com/chimps/. It is more than worth the time to learn more about this travesty that has been churning for decades…and it is about time that we all take action to its righteous conclusion.
Send this automated letter asking your legislators to sign on.
Reaching and inspiring the public is a priority.
In addition to our award-winning website, social networking, ads, and presentations, here’s a sampling of where we’ve recently been:
- Texas Public Radio in a feature story about the Alamogordo chimpanzees. Read or listen.
- CNN’s ISSUES with Jane Velez-Mitchell on 1/14. Watch the segment.
- CNN’s Velez-Mitchell’s follow up on 1/31: “I was just sent a tag that belonged to one of the research chimps named Pearl. I`m going to wear Pearl`s tag every day until those chimps are permanently spared and until Congress passes the Great Ape Protection Act to ban invasive research on chimps.” See the clip.