By Stu Hutson

For all the monkey business in Washington, DC, US lawmakers have decided to get serious about protecting chimpanzees. But doing so creates a conundrum: although the apes are intelligent and caring creatures, they are also considered by many to be the best animal model for developing a vaccine for hepatitis C, a human liver disease that leads to nearly 350,000 deaths each year worldwide.

The only large-scale effort to use chimps for such research is in the US. A bill now under consideration by Senate and House committees would put a stop to much of that work; the Great Ape Protection Act would nix “invasive” research on chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons. It defines ‘invasive’ as “any research that may cause death, bodily injury, pain, distress, fear, injury or trauma to a great ape”—effectively ending all but some behavioral research on the animals. This would mean retirement to sanctuaries for approximately 1,000 chimps living in US research labs. (Click here to continue reading)

Image by brad.coy via Flickr Creative Commons