Caged 'Chimpanzees' on HHS Steps Plead for 'Sanctuary' as NIH Turns a Deaf Ear

For Immediate Release:
September 13, 2010

Contact:
Robbyn Brooks 757-622-7382

Washington, D.C. -- Wearing chimpanzee costumes while locked inside small cages and holding signs that read, "HHS: No More Tests, No More Torture" and "Sanctuary, Not Suffering. Retire Chimpanzees," PETA members will protest outside the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday. The demonstration follows reports that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) plans to transfer 202 chimpanzees who have been "retired" for a decade from the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico to the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, Texas, for use in invasive and painful infectious disease experiments.

When:   Tuesday, September 14, 12 noon 

Where:  Steps of the Department of Health and Human Services building, 200 Independence Ave. S.W. (at the intersection of Third Ave. S.W.), Washington D.C.

"Experimenters have robbed these chimpanzees of their health, families, and freedom, and yet, over the objections of primatologists and animal protectors all over the world, the NIH is shipping these animals back for more painful experiments," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "Our closest genetic relatives experience profound suffering, fear, and loneliness, just as humans do, and treating them as disposable test tubes with legs is unjustifiable."

The aging animals have already endured decades of imprisonment and terrifying experiments, including tests conducted by the U.S. Air Force, seat belt crash tests, and tests in which they were infected with hepatitis C, the simian immunodeficiency virus, and other viruses. Some of the chimpanzees are as old as 53, and all have spent decades locked in laboratory cages barely bigger than their own bodies.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, Dr. Jane Goodall, actor Gene Hackman, scientists, and other people from around the world have joined with PETA and other groups in calling on the NIH and HHS to cancel this misguided plan and permanently retire the chimpanzees. The U.S. is the only developed country that continues to use chimpanzees in invasive experiments, and last week, the European Union announced that it was effectively banning the use of chimpanzees and other great apes in experiments.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.