Rampart Star Calls for Chimps to be Retired, Not Used in Painful Experiments
For Immediate Release:
February 15, 2012
Contact:
Kristin Richards 202-483-7382
Washington — As critics laud Woody Harrelson's performance in the just-opened movie Rampart, Harrelson is taking another serious turn in the letter he just sent on PETA's behalf to California Senator Barbara Boxer. In the letter, Harrelson asks Senator Boxer—the chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works—to join the more than 160 senators and representatives who are supporting the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, which would permanently end the use of chimpanzees and all other great apes in invasive experiments, retire federally owned apes to sanctuaries, and save taxpayers millions of dollars a year. For this legislation to move forward, Boxer must schedule a markup so that the committee can consider it.
"I was shocked to learn that the use of chimpanzees in experiments still persists in the U.S. even though the entire European Union and every other country around the world, except for tiny Gabon, have banned such experiments," writes Harrelson. "But nearly 1,000 of these complex beings are locked inside barren cells in U.S. laboratories—some for as long as 50 years—where they have been intentionally infected with diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis and forced to endure decades of invasive procedures, fear, loneliness, and pain. … I hope you will agree that chimpanzees deserve better."
Woody Harrelson's letter to Senator Barbara Boxer follows and can be found here.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.