Chimps to be spared from use in US medical experiments

American scientific group urges strict limits on laboratory research with chimpanzees

chimpanzees should only be used for medical research, a group of leading scientists said Thursday that the U.S. government -. Council refers to days in the laboratory can be said because the parents of the man

The Institute of Medicine came to recommend the absolute rights activists ban animals had lobbied for.

Instead, he urged strict limits to invasive experiments on chimpanzees essentially a last resort, now the tools of the most advanced research: the use of primates will rarely sufficient to offset the moral costs.

Chimp research and has been declining faster than scientists have turned to alternative, less costly and ethically.

The government agency of the United States in charge of it - the National Institutes of Health -. He called the new recommendations "scientifically sound" and noted that some changes would be

"Although the operational details need to be resolved, the NIH intends to approve the general conclusions of the group," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of NIH.

genetic similarity of the people of apes long ago caused a dilemma. This is what has become so valuable to scientists for nearly a century.

They are essential in creating a vaccine against hepatitis B, for example, and were shot down, even in space to ensure that the trip would not kill the next astronauts online.

• But this close relationship has been animal rights argue that the use of chimpanzees for biomedical research is unethical and can be cruel.
• "We understand and are bound by the moral cost of using chimpanzees in research," said bioethicist Jeffrey Kahn, of Johns Hopkins University, who chaired the committee of the Institute of Medicine.

"We established the criteria that will set the bar high enough to justify the use of chimpanzees."

for biomedical research - testing new drugs or giving the animal a disease - which means the use of chimpanzees as if the studies can be performed in other animals or people themselves, and if it gives chimpanzee studies that impede progress against life-threatening or disabling other diseases.

The panel recommended the government to limit the use of chimpanzees in research on behavior as well, saying that such studies should provide insights into the brain and behavior that are otherwise inaccessible -. And use techniques that minimize any pain or distress