Science Magazine 22 December 2000  Volume 290 Number 5500

LABORATORY ANIMALS: Congress OKs Plan for Retired Chimps Gretchen Vogel Congress has approved a retirement plan for chimpanzees that have helped to further medical science. On 6 December, the Senate put the final stamp of approval on the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection (CHIMP) Act. It authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to spend $30 million to set up and administer a system of retirement sanctuaries for chimpanzees no longer needed for research. But congressional supporters say that funds for the plan, which they hope will save money in the long run, should come out of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) existing budget. President Clinton was expected to sign the bill this week. U.S. biomedical research facilities care for approximately 1600 chimpanzees. In the early 1980s, NIH launched a breeding program to satisfy an expected growth in demand for chimpanzees in HIV trials. But that demand never materialized, once researchers discovered that most chimps do not get sick from HIV. In 1997, the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the government set up a system of sanctuaries to house unneeded animals, which can live for up to 50 years, more cheaply than at research facilities. The final bill represents an unhappy compromise both for NIH officials and many animal welfare activists. Although activists sought "permanent retirement" for the chimps, the legislation now allows research on retired chimps in "special circumstances," after approval by the sanctuary's board of directors and a 60-day public comment period. "I don't think that's any kind of protection at all," says Eric Kleiman, a spokesperson for In Defense of Animals, an animal rights group in Mill Valley, California. On the other hand, NIH, which wanted the chimps available for future research on new pathogens or new vaccines, says it must now clear a formidable administrative hurdle to do that. "Even though theoretically animals could be removed ... there are too many provisos," says Judith Vaitukaitis, director of the National Center for Research Resources at NIH, which oversees federally funded primate research centers. Chris Heyde of the Society for Animal Protective Legislation, a Washington, D.C., group that lobbied for the bill, agrees that it would be difficult to bring the animals out of retirement. "We were able to sit down and put hurdles in the way," he says. "The permanent retirement [concept] is still there."