Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NIH Restricts Use of Chimpanzees in Labs

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-more-monkey-business dept.

vikingpower writes "The U.S. National Institutes of Health on Thursday suspended all new grants for biomedical and behavioral research on chimpanzees and accepted the first uniform criteria for assessing the necessity of such research (full report here). Those guidelines require that the research be necessary for human health, and that there be no other way to accomplish it. A San Francisco Chronicle article points out why chimpanzees are so often used for medical research, as they are evolutionarily the closest to human beings. One may wonder if Europe and Asia are to follow the U.S.?"

7 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. substitute? by AntEater · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess they'll have to go back to using grad students.

    --
    Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
    1. Re:substitute? by EvilSpudBoy · · Score: 5, Funny

      The research will suffer becuase grad students aren't as evolutionarily close to human beings as chimpanzees.

    2. Re:substitute? by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Funny

      Planet of the Grad Students.

      Ruled by Mr. Zaius BS.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  2. It makes perfect sense by shadowrat · · Score: 3, Funny

    Look at all the trouble those super smart rats caused. It's probably not a good idea to be doing that stuff with something that starts out even smarter, like a chimp.

    Wait. Is NIH different from NIMH?

  3. I guess they saw the movie by erroneus · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... the most recent remake of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes might be enough to make them rethink things a little...

  4. Unfair by backslashdot · · Score: 1, Funny

    Look, I have disagreements with Tea Party supporters too .. but to outright ban them from labs? That doesn't seem right to me.

    1. Re:Unfair by c0lo · · Score: 3, Funny

      Look, I have disagreements with Tea Party supporters too .. but to outright ban them from labs? That doesn't seem right to me.

      Non sequitur. NIH banned the use of evolutionary closer relatives of humans, didn't say anything about lower species.

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.