The National Institutes of Health has placed a temporary moratorium on new studies using chimpanzees, it announced Thursday in response to a report that marks nearly all medical research on the great apes as scientifically unjustified.
“Effective immediately, NIH will not issue any new awards for chimpanzee research” as the agency puts in a place a committee to review research proposals, NIH Director Francis Collins said during a press briefing.
Chimpanzee research that does not meet rules established by the report will be phased out, Collins said. He estimated that about half of the 37 current NIH-funded chimp studies would not rise to standards proposed in Thursday’s report from theInstitute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences.
The congressionally mandated study concluded that any future studies using the great apes need to clear a “very high bar,” said Jeffrey Kahn, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University who chaired the report committee.
“Fewer kinds of studies will be justified based on the criteria that we set out,” Kahn said. “We’re on a trajectory of a diminishing number of chimps necessary for research.”
The report did not endorse an outright ban on chimp research but instead outlined restrictive rules for using the apes.
Chimpanzees’ similarity to humans in intelligence and emotional awareness implies “a moral cost and ethical issues” when mankind’s closest evolutionary cousin is kept captive for invasive medical research, Kahn said.
Chimpanzees are not needed for research on HIV/AIDS, cancer or nearly any other type of disease, the IOM found. After surveying the past decade of medical chimp research, the report committee concluded that only one disease might warrant further research with apes: the development of a vaccine to prevent hepatitis C.
A notorious experimenter and primate supplier wants the U.S.’ help tormenting more monkeys in laboratories.
Frank Ervin, a vivisector from McGill University, operates the Behavioral Sciences Foundation/Primate Resources International on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, which pays trappers to remove vervet monkeys from the wild so that they can be imprisoned in laboratories. The facility crams many monkeys into wooden crates and sends them on a terrifying journey in the dark cargo holds of airplanes to the U.S. and other countries to be tortured and killed in experiments. Ervin also performs his own deadly experiments on monkeys. These disturbing photos, leaked to PETA, are allegedly of monkeys killed in Ervin’s cruel experiments on fetal alcohol syndrome:
Ervin wants the U.S. to buy even more monkeys to experiment on, since, in his opinion, the monkeys are “agricultural predators” because they sometimes eat farmers’ crops. We’re sure that’s the reason he wants the U.S. to purchase the animals, not because of the profit that he stands to make. The Animal Rights Foundation of Florida (ARFF) has launched an initiative against importing the monkeys from St. Kitts, including sharing that St. Kitts’ own Ministry of Agriculture advocates for spaying and neutering and strategically placed feeding stations to control the monkey population and keep them away from crops.
One U.S. buyer of monkeys from St. Kitts is the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground, which torments the monkeys in cruel and archaic chemical casualty training exercises. You can help end these torturous exercises and prevent the government from stuffing Ervin’s pockets by asking your senators and representatives to take action to end Aberdeen’s monkey laboratories.
The next time you’re struggling to relate, think like a baboon. Once again non-human primates are making monkeys out of us and our ideas about uniquely human abilities. Turns out baboons can solve analogy problems—yes, like those scary questions in the GRE Verbal Section.
Analogies are all about relationships. Cat is to kitten as dog is to puppy, rain is to dampness as sun is to heat, etc. To make an analogy, you have to understand the relationship between a pair and then relate that to another pair. Most of us use analogies all the time, and because of their link to language, we thought we were the only living beings that could do it. Not so, apparently.
In a study published in Psychological Science, Franklin & Marshall’s Roger Thompson and Joël Fagot of the Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive gave 29 baboons their very own analogy test using visual cues. Each baboon watched a touch screen reveal two shapes with a specific relationship. The next screen presented two pairs of shapes. Baboons received a reward when they correctly identified a pair that related in the same way as the first.
Not only did six of the baboons learn how to use analogies to earn a reward, but when taking the test again a year later, the baboons acquired the skill faster than the first time around. This suggests that they could remember how to make analogous connections.
A paper released this earlier this week has been first to document spontaneous prosocial behaviour in chimpanzees, finally drawing a line under the question as to whether the welfare of others is considered during choice making in this species; a controversial topic, where such behaviours have been often concluded to be absent in any primate apart from humans (generally from research within the social sciences). This research was carried out at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center by Victoria Horner, and Frans de Waal.
Pairs of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) where placed into testing rooms, separated by a mesh barrier. One individual had access to 30 tokens, divided into two separate colours – all of which could be given to the experimenter in exchange for food. Half of these when exchanged resulted in a selfish outcome in which only the individual handing the token received a reward, whereas the other half resulted in an altruistic outcome where both individuals received an equal reward.
The individual handing the tokens to the experimenter was rewarded regardless. If chimpanzees where choosing under a system driven by selfish interests, there should be a preference towards the choice where only the individual in control of the tokens receives a reward, and if the choice was purely random, each token would be expected to be seen 50% of the time. However, it was found that pairs where significantly more likely to share a reward (displaying prosocial behaviour), than choose the selfish option.
Victoria Hornera, J. Devyn Cartera, Malini Suchaka, and Frans B. M. de Waal (2011). Spontaneous prosocial choice by chimpanzees Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences : 10.1073/pnas.1111088108
Researchers claim to have conducted experiments showing that monkeys can be taught how to spend money and even know how to find a bargain.
Scientists from Yale University carried out a series of tests with capuchin monkeys by giving them coin-like tokens to see if they would trade them for food items.
Academics discovered that the animals held on to the tokens as though they valued them, as well as learning how to exchange them for pieces of fruit and waiting during transactions.
The group of capuchin monkeys even appeared to grasp the concept of ‘bargain hunting’ by flocking to lower-priced pieces of fruit, according to the study.
In research published this month in ‘Mental Floss’ magazine, Professor Laurie Santos, from Yale University Department of Psychology, outlined how capuchin monkeys were given a ‘wallet’ of 12 aluminium coin-like tokens.
The creatures were then given the option of two food options, in exchange for a food token.
The tests showed that the capuchins, including the alpha male of the group Felix, weighed up the options of both food items before obediently handing over a token in exchange for a piece of orange.
Professor Santos said the monkey’s behaviour showed how the capuchins can be seen ‘contemplating, thinking about what they’re going to buy’.
It is thought that the monkeys behaviour differs from other animals who can also be taught to swap one item for another if there is a chance of obtaining food.
The research in Mental Floss described how the capuchins weighed up their options as ‘cautious, observant shoppers’, a trait previously only seen in humans.
Yale economist Keith Chen, who worked with Professor Santos, told the publication: ‘We started investigating whether or not we could introduce them to a basic market economy.
‘I’m not even sure we had a good idea of how it would work. But if we could, I knew there were a dozen experiments that people in the economics world would be interested in.’
Describing the process where monkeys appeared to ‘buy’ food, Professor Santos added: ‘When you watch it, it looks like they’re contemplating, thinking about what they’re going to buy.
‘What separates these capuchins from the scores of animals who have been trained to perform complex behaviors in exchange for food is the option presented by that second researcher.’
‘The critical aspect of money is that it represents a choice. A coin is fundamentally different than, say, pressing a lever.’
Researchers began to experiment further by changing the prices in the ‘Monkey Market’ they had created.Professor Santos described how the capuchins were presented with two equally appealing food options - a Jell-o cube and an apple slice - but with the apple half the price of the Jell-o.
The capuchin monkeys were said to have opted on the majority of occasions for the cheaper food option - thereby reacting to a price shift.
Yale researchers claimed the animals also displayed the same tendency to wrecklessly spend savings as humans.
Professor Santos added: ‘One of the things we never saw in the Monkey Market was savings—just like with our own species. They always just spent all their cash at once.’
