AAVS is pleased to report that the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326) is steadily gaining momentum in Congress. Since its reintroduction in March, the number of co-sponsors is up from 22 to a total of 64, and the bill has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

As AAVS supporters may recall, the Great Ape Protection Act was first introduced in 2008, but because it did not receive a vote before the Congressional session ran out, the bill remained stagnant. Then, on the heels of the release of an investigation into abuse of chimpanzees and monkeys at Louisiana's New Iberia Research Center, our nation's largest primate research facility, Congress reintroduced the Great Ape Protection Act in March this year.

This groundbreaking legislation would end invasive research on over 1,000 chimpanzees still languishing in U.S. laboratories, and prohibit such experiments on all great apes (defined as chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons). In addition, the law would prohibit the transport and breeding of great apes for the purpose of invasive research, and permanently ban the federal funding of chimpanzee breeding programs. It would also require relocation of federally-owned chimpanzees to permanent retirement facilities, a move that AAVS has supported since 1999 when we were instrumental in aiding the development of the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection (CHIMP) Act. According to the Great Ape Protect Act, care for great apes in a research laboratory can range from $300,000 to $500,000, whereas the cost of providing sanctuary is approximately $275,000 per animal.

The bill was introduced and reintroduced by U.S. Representative Edolphus Towns (D-NY), who is the Chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, and recently hosted a Congressional briefing on the legislation. The bill defines ‘invasive research' as any experiment that may cause "death, bodily injury, pain, distress, fear, injury, or trauma," including psychological experiments of social deprivation and isolation.

Currently, six countries have either banned or severely limited the use of great apes in research projects, including Australia, Austria, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Sweden. In addition, Great Britain stopped granting licenses for chimpanzee research in 1997, and the Balearic Islands granted legal rights to great apes in 2007.

The Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326) already has bipartisan backing in the House of Representatives, but it needs more support to move forward. Please ask your U.S. Representative to co-sponsor this important legislation that would end invasive research on great apes. Let him/her know that this bill is an important step towards more effective and humane science and that similar bills have already been passed in European countries.

For more information about the use of primates in research, please see "Primate Experimentation and Testing: From the Forests to the Lab," in the Spring 2006 issue of AV Magazine.


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Source: AAVS - American Anti-Vivisection Society