The following article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution cries out for letters to editor against the use of chimps in research. You can find out more about the NEAVS campaign and tonight's event at http://www.releasechimps.org/
And you can send a letter to the AJC editor at http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
April 20, 2006 Thursday
SECTION: METRO NEWS; Pg. 6D
Yerkes focus of chimp 'awareness campaign';
Primate center chief says group is uninformed
BILL HENDRICK
He's been the butt of criticism before, so Stuart Zola, director of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University, plans to ignore a planned demonstration tonight by a Boston-based animal rights group claiming Emory University's chimpanzees are mistreated --- a claim he denies.
The New England Anti-Vivisection Society says it chose the Fernbank Museum of Natural History to kick off its national "awareness campaign" because Yerkes is one of the best-known research centers for non-human primates.
Zola said Yerkes' 109 chimps, which are used in experiments, are treated humanely.
"This is not really a protest, but an awareness campaign," said Theodora Capaldo, president of the group. "It is not a protest. There will be no placards or signs. We simply want to educate the public about what goes on at Yerkes and other centers where chimpanzees are studied, often cruelly."
She said about 170 people are expected at the 7 p.m. Fernbank event, where experts will discuss the treatment of about 1,300 chimps in U.S. research labs. Lectures by primate specialists, "rescuers," geneticists and former Yerkes chimp handlers are planned.
Museum spokeswoman Ma-rissa Greider said Fernbank has no position on the issue.
Yerkes has been the target of animal-rights groups for two decades. In 2001, about 20 people demonstrated peacefully for two hours in front of the World of Coke, protesting the Coca-Cola Co.'s financial interest in Emory and Yerkes. Numerous protests have been aimed at Yerkes since the late 1980s, all peaceful except for a 1997 clash with police in which 64 people were arrested.
"We believe that the time has come," Capaldo said, "to extend the circle of scientific morality to include our next of kin and essentially all great apes."
Zola, a neuroscientist who came to Emory in 2001 from the University of California at San Diego, received a rude reception when he arrived at his new neighborhood in Decatur. He and his neighbors were greeted by photos of a monkey in restraints, screeching as the image of a human hand peeled its scalp back.
He said his center's chimps are involved in research projects that do not harm them.
"Many are involved in social interaction experiments, others that look at developmental culture," he said. "We have a few involved in research on hepatitis C, and a large number now in research on cognitive decline and aging."
The goal, he said, is to learn something about human aging and possibly discover triggers for Alzheimer's disease by studying chimps, which don't develop the illness.
He said it's important for scientists to study the brains of chimps, not through surgery but with scans that take brain images for clues about how the animals think.
"We aren't just studying cognitive decline, but aspects of motor behavior," he said.
Though there was a time when chimps were intentionally infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS, that no longer is done, Zola said, for "practical reasons. We've learned what we can from chimpanzees in terms of HIV research. We now have better models. They were once critically valuable and critically important, but we have moved on to other models because of what we've learned."
No chimp at Yerkes has died of AIDS, though some were infected with HIV and were later euthanized, he said. Yerkes spokeswoman Lisa Newbern said some had developed "an AIDS-like disease"
Zola said he was annoyed that the Boston group had chosen Yerkes to begin what it claims will be a national fight against chimp experiments.
"It's just a political movement, not a movement with humane purposes," he said. "This has a long history. These activists are profoundly ignorant about the facts of science. It is not a humane movement."
(END OF AJC ARTICLE)
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Date: Thu Apr 20 12:30:19 2006
