NIH Ends Support of Biomedical Research on Chimpanzees

The Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, has just announced that the NIH will no longer support biomedical research on chimpanzees. This decision follows the recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service final rule (80 Fed. Reg. 34500, 6/16/15) that listed all chimpanzees – not just wild chimpanzees – as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, as well as the 6/26/13 decision by NIH to significantly reduce the use of chimpanzees in research, and the 12/15/11 decision by NIH to accept an Institute of Medicine report that, while a few specific areas “may continue to require the use of chimpanzees, … most current use of chimpanzees for biomedical research is unnecessary.” In June 2013, the NIH planned “to retain but not breed up to 50 chimpanzees for future biomedical research,” and retired chimpanzees were eligible for move to the Federal Sanctuary System. [See also 42 C.F.R. 9, Standards of Care for Chimpanzees Held in the Federally Supported Sanctuary System.] The NIH will now retire the 50 chimpanzees, and they will be relocated to the Federal Sanctuary System “as space is available and on a timescale that will allow for optimal transition of each individual chimpanzee with careful consideration of their welfare, including their health and social grouping.”