
NIH to retire all research chimpanzees - sethbannon
http://www.nature.com/news/nih-to-retire-all-research-chimpanzees-1.18817
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vj44
I'd like to challenge the underlying assumption of NIH's reasoning here: “We
reached a point where in that five years the need for research has essentially
shrunk to zero. “

This is not true. The demand for research animals is huge, and growing. Due to
extremely restrictive laws and procedures governing the use of animals in
research in the US and the EU (source: my own experience), virtually all
interesting research (=breakthrough/publishable) becomes impractical.

What _has_ already happened is that all interesting research moved to
countries with less restrictive laws, namely China (source: direct exposure to
my Chinese colleagues in neuroscience). With their vast and unrestrictive
funding (CAS etc.), it is the Chinese who are now coming out with some
fascinating results. More than that, some of my EU/US colleagues collaborate
directly with them, on the exact same research, just on the Chinese soil
(read: inconvenience of relocation, but that's about it).

~~~
igravious
I agree that this comment “We reached a point where in that five years the
need for research has essentially shrunk to zero.” is a bit disingenuous as it
is the same restrictive regulations that these institutes have put into place
that have driven the demand to zero.

However, that was the intended consequence I would argue. And rather than say,
“This is the state of affairs we wanted, we wanted zero invasive research on
primates.” they are going to deflect blame because they get charged with
endangering public health, “Given NIH’s primary mission to protect public
health, it seems surprising,”

And that _is_ what is happening. It's an ethical trade-off. I'd actually
prefer them to say that they were aware that some science might take longer
but that the chimpanzee's well-being was now being taken into consideration,
so sorry about that. I can see why they don't though, even if that's what they
believe.

~~~
Pigo
This makes a lot of sense, and makes me wonder how much experimentation on
humans has risen in the time it took for that demand to reach zero. Or maybe
how much regulation of human experiments has relaxed. I doubt there's much
advocacy for these people, who are often just people in need.

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cryoshon
A setback for science, but a large ethical step forward.

I am a bit unsettled by the idea that even non-invasive and neutral research
will stop; this means that some of the work I did on SIV vaccine efficacy (for
the purposes of learning in service of making an HIV vaccine) a few years ago
might not get the ethical approval to be performed today even though we were
using macaques instead of chimps.

I anticipate a chilling effect on primate studies in general after this policy
change as the review boards attune to the new current of cash flow from the
NIH. Monkey trials have always been exorbitantly expensive, and non-chimp
studies will probably see cost rises in addition to reduced funding. In our
trials, the monkeys were given harmless vaccinations, and had blood draws
every once in a while, then retired to a sanctuary at the end of the study...
not remotely unethical, but probably not consistent with the highest standards
of animal rights that are coming into vogue.

A lot of these monkeys are very well cared for-- not loved, but definitely
attended to. There are federal IACUC regulations on how many toys they are
allowed to have, and how to rotate their selection of toys such that they only
have access to their favorite toy/food/drink some of the time so that they
don't get hedonic desensitization. These monkeys even have privacy rights
regarding their medical info in some niche cases.

~~~
oneJob
I would argue that your premise that science and ethics are mutually exclusive
(they must be if you can say good/bad for science _but_ good/bad for ethics)
is completely, utterly false.

science := 1) the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the
systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural
world through observation and experiment; 2) a systematically organized body
of knowledge on a particular subject

ethics := 1) moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior; 2)
the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles

To take an either or approach to endeavors which touch on both science and
ethics is to immediately set out with a means to ends vs ends to means
approach depending on where one's priorities lie.

I'd argue that ethics is pervasive and pertinent across every and all human
endeavors, including ethics, and that the task is to work the scientific
process in an ethical manner. _Not_ to put the two at odds.

~~~
cryoshon
Eh, my premise isn't that science and ethics are always are mutually
exclusive. Like I said, you can do a perfectly ethical primate study and get
great data, it's just that philosophically there are many people opposed to
the very concept of an animal study because it will infringe upon the animal's
"right" to self determination so they'll fight against these ethical studies
too.

Without these regulations, the animals get abused... it's not sufficient to
trust scientists to be ethical.

~~~
oneJob
My bad. I said mutually exclusive. I meant and should have said independent.

Which I would have meant to mean, since ethics pervades all human endeavors,
and science is a human endeavor, they are not completely independent.

So yeah, that's what I was trying to mean, but clearly said something else.

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vinay427
About time. I was watching a CBC documentary on a sanctuary in Louisiana and
the US was clearly criticized as an outlier in this respect. The chimpanzees
are treated terribly with no regard given for their livelihood. Nothing should
have to go through that in my opinion. This policy is a few decades late but
better late than never.

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adamc
Finally! I think it was obvious decades ago that this was ethically wrong, but
we were blinded by the benefits to us.

~~~
vdaniuk
>was ethically wrong

Debatable and depends on the choice of either deontological or
consequentialist theory of ethics.

~~~
grt178
If you believe Peter Singer's argument, then regardless of a deontological or
consequentialist viewpoint, you must accept experimentation on mentally
retarded humans in order to accept experimentation on great apes. Neither
deontology nor consequentialism has any justification for specicism.

~~~
rtl49
Why should one accept Peter Singer's argument?

For instance, if you regard morality as a framework for negotiating conflicts
of interest within the species, it could make sense to reject experimentation
on handicapped humans while allowing experimentation on apes belonging to
other species.

------
rtl49
I take issue with the suggestion that this is an unambiguous sign of ethical
progress in scientific research.

One problem is that there is rather little clarity on the set of ethical
principles that warrants the inclusion of other species into our sphere of
moral concern. It seems that, from a detached perspective, the only
identifiable basis for our moral sense is that it enables human beings to
negotiate conflict and cooperate in social settings without recourse to
violence. It's difficult for some to see how a concern for the other great
apes advances this goal. On the other hand, there are many research contexts
where the close evolutionary relationship between _Homo sapiens_ and the other
great apes makes the latter an extremely useful pool of specimens in
situations where experimenting directly on the former would conflict with this
goal. In other words, we need to clarify the justification for concern for the
well-being of the other great apes. Is this mere empathy, or is there a
rational basis for the ethical judgment which accounts for the basis of
morality?

------
thehoff
Reminded me of this story I read a while back:

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/25-years-ago-in-virginia-a-
very-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/25-years-ago-in-virginia-a-very-
different-ebola-outbreak/)

And those wanting to learn more:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston_virus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston_virus)

------
jrowley
How do you all feel about testing on dogs? I know a guy who has induced
strokes in beagles while they were anesthetized and inside an MRI. In the past
we were never able to see a stroke occur and the brain's response in real
time. The research might lead to breakthroughs in how we treat stroke which
could save thousands of human lives... an ethical conundrum without a doubt.

------
nnq
Primates are a _very valuable resource_ for medical research. Lots of research
programes would highly benefit from higher primates. But researches have been
driven to be _even afraid to ask_ for access to such a resource if they want
grants accepted anywhere in the world! Gould luck asking for any higher
primate for any neuroscience research if you want it approved!

By artificially making them _prohibitively expensive_ (by, for examples,
demanding higher quality of animal care and all sorts of authorizations) and
by adding tons of ethical and regulatory concerns, nobody even asks for them
because the cost/risk ratio for any project makes it not worth it.

It's "probably" X times cheaper to go to a third world country and
cladestinely test any crucial biotech stuff _directly on humans_ as they are
cheap and in some places "unwanted" anyhow. Governments/army probably have
access to prisons for their needs also.

I can imagine when cool and useful stuff like implantable high-res-and-
bandwidth brain-computer-interfaces come to market with killer side-effects
because of improper prior testing. Oh wait... they'll probably come 50 years
later anyhow because they're too risky/expensive to develop and test.

This kinds of stupid policy moves could have even nastier species-level
consequences: imagine having a superhuman-AI pop up _before we have human-
mind-uploading capabilities_ and wipe out the whole goddamn human race before
we get to upload even one human-intelligence to the cloud :| ...simply because
the mind uploading stuff and its precursor technologies would've had to be
developed through iterative testing on chimpanzees because it was illegal or
too expensive (or the army/gov was not interested in it strongly enough to
have the experiments done directly on humans).

 _Sad..._

~~~
igravious
Your comment is:

_strident/emotive_ _very valuable resource_ , _even afraid to ask_ ,
_prohibitively expensive_ , etc.

_melodramatic_ "cladestinely test any crucial biotech stuff _directly on
humans_ "

_fantastical_ "cool and useful stuff like implantable high-res-and-bandwidth
brain-computer-interfaces"

_hyperbolic_ "wipe out the whole goddamn human race"

Meanwhile back on planet Earth some higher primates in one corner of the world
get to not be experimented on.

~~~
nnq
> Meanwhile back on planet Earth some higher primates in one corner of the
> world get to not be experimented on.

don't care that much about what you call "planet Earth". yeah, someone has to
care about this too (we also need to survive the present in order to steer the
world towards our visions) but I choose to not be one of them.

my little "vision of future" is cool enough for me. and when back on "planet
Earth" I strive to pull people and things as strong as possible towards my
vision, and hopefully one day the future will get close enough to it, and at
least my grandchildren will enjoy some of it.

actually, the only reason I cared about this piece of news is because its
consequences have the possibility to steer the future to a point that might be
different from my vision, and this is something I care about, and I
instinctively attack anything threatening my vision event potentially
...especially when bored enough to enjoy some trolling.

 _...but I sincerely appreciate you comment :) mine was a crazy-ish rant, but
yours actually has useful copy writing style tips that I might find useful
here on "planet earth". cheers!_

~~~
igravious
I think your vision will come about whether or not we experiment on chimps and
their like. It might take ever so slightly longer to arrive at your vision,
but in the mean time we cut down on what some of us believe to be the
unnecessary suffering of non-human animals.

But think about it this way. Maybe it'll force us to ramp up computer bio-
simulation, and that might be very successful, and that might mean that it
might take ever so slightly shorter to arrive at your vision!

I want to comment on this assertion of yours, "I strive to pull people and
things as strong as possible towards my vision, and hopefully one day the
future will get close enough to it, and at least my grandchildren will enjoy
some of it."

What happens if someone else's vision is at variance with yours? Or they
disagree with the means to achieve your vision? No amount of pulling will make
people move in your direction if they really don't want to go there. How are
you going to get to where you want to go without conflict? Is there a place
for the element of compromise along your path? :)

Thanks for saying you appreciate what I wrote! Keep on dreaming big!

