BIOQUAL Conducts Chimpanzee Experiments Now Deemed Unnecessary by Government Panel
For
Immediate Release:
December
21, 2011
Contact:
Kristin
Richards 202-483-7382
Rockville, Md. -- In the wake of the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) landmark report concluding that "most current biomedical research use of chimpanzees is not necessary" and the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) suspension of funding for future chimpanzee experiments and reevaluation of currently funded studies, PETA has bought stock in Rockville-based BIOQUAL, a private contract laboratory known for its painful, invasive experiments on great apes in order to introduce a shareholder resolution calling on the company to end these experiments.
In one recent NIH-funded study, NIH and BIOQUAL experimenters separated six young chimpanzees from their mothers, locked them in individual cages, and exposed them to norovirus, which causes diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pain. The chimpanzees—who were as young as 2 years old—were then subjected to months of painful biopsy procedures in which pieces of their organs were removed.
The IOM report released last week states that chimpanzees are not needed for norovirus studies. BIOQUAL also continues to conduct hepatitis C experiments on chimpanzees, which the IOM has not deemed necessary and which were ended by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in 2008.
"Invasive experiments on chimpanzees at BIOQUAL and elsewhere are decried by the public, have been deemed unnecessary by the nation's leading scientific authority, and are on track to lose their funding," says PETA Vice President Kathy Guillermo. "BIOQUAL's continued use of young chimpanzees in painful experiments shows the urgent need for the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, which would shut down experiments on chimpanzees in the U.S. for good."
BIOQUAL's history of abusing chimpanzees dates back to 1987, when an undercover video released by PETA showed infant chimpanzees isolated in dark, empty steel cages. Jane Goodall visited the laboratory and then called for its closure, describing it as "one of the very worst."
For more information, please visit PETA.org.