The New York Times - November 19, 1985
Erik Eckholm

Medical scientists consider chimpanzees, the closest relative to humans in the animal world, to be indispensable for certain experiments, including future tests of vaccines against AIDS. The projected decline in research animals has engendered wide concern.

Since the mid-1970's, no imports have been permitted of chimpanzees caught in the wilds of Africa, where the species is threatened. Hundreds of the animals have been bred in captivity. But without new measures, scientists say, the future availability of chimpanzees will be endangered by two trends.

First, as the chimpanzees born here in captivity reach maturity, most are proving inept at mating and childrearing. Specialists believe this is because the animals were psychologically wounded in infancy by social deprivation, especially early removal from their mothers. Nearly half the 1,200 chimpanzees held for science are now captive-born and that proportion is steadily climbing.

Second, many of the animals are used in experiments with a form of viral hepatitis, non-A non-B, that can leave them and their offspring permanently infectious. Since no test exists to determine which of the exposed animals continue to carry the virus, these "compromised" animals cannot be used for many other kinds of medical research.

"With current practices, production of experimentally uncompromised offspring, behaviorally capable of rearing their offspring, will fall to zero within approximately 20 years," a Federal panel has warned.

Already, many primate facilities have begun leaving infant chimpanzees with their mothers longer than before in the hope they will prove to be better breeders as adults. In January the National Institutes of Health will propose to Congress a $17 million, four-year National Chimpanzee Management Plan, under which for the first time many animals would spend their lives dedicated solely to breeding.

Under the plan, the Federal Government would help five to eight different institutes establish populations totaling 350 animals, from which about 30 to 35 young chimpanzees could be culled for research uses each year. Medical researchers currently require about 60 new chimpanzees annually and especially value younger animals, not yet large and dangerous to handle.

"This is a minimal program," said Dennis Johnsen, an expert on primate research at the National Institutes of Health. "It won't meet all the needs, but it will insure that a breeding population is saved for the future. If we don't do something, chimpanzees will disappear from the scene in the United States."

The new proposals come at a time of increased soul-searching about obligations to an animal that is highly intelligent and often startlingly humanlike. The lifetime cost of keeping a chimpanzee can reach a quarter of a million dollars. The suggestion made by some officials to destroy chimpanzees that, because of hepatitis infection or other causes, "cannot earn their keep" has provoked an outcry from many researchers as well as from animal welfare activists.

Although some animal rights proponents challenge the morality of using chimpanzees in research at all, scientists see these animals as the only alternative to humans for certain vital experiments. The majority of chimpanzees are involved in research on hepatitis, including hepatitis-B, which infects some 200 million people worldwide and is a major cause of liver cancer and cirrhosis, and the form known as non-A non-B, a currently indetectable contaminant of blood transfusions that also causes cirrhosis. Chimpanzees are the only animals other than humans that become infected with hepatitis, but it does not make them ill; most research involves blood sampling and liver biopsies that do not harm the animals.

Dozens of chimpanzees have already been used in research on acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and they will be killed for safety. As with hepatitis, chimpanzees are the only known animal the AIDS virus can infect, but they do not develop the deadly syndrome. Scientists expect chimpanzees will be essential for testing possible anti-AIDS vaccines. Chimpanzees are also seen as uniquely suited for certain research on immunological disorders, reproduction and behavior.

"Twenty years ago no one could have predicted that we would need chimpanzees so badly for hepatitis research," said Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski, director of New York University's Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP). He endorsed the Federal proposal, saying, "We can't know how many chimps we'll need in the future, but if we don't have any we can't go back."

Chimpanzees in the proposed new breeding colonies would not be used in any research that could threaten their medical integrity or mental health. Rearing practices intended to improve their reproductive performance would be followed.

Generation of Inept Animals

In the past, many primate centers have taken newborn chimpanzees away from their mothers at birth or soon after so the mothers can reproduce again more quickly. While this has yielded more offspring in the short term, it has also produced a generation of abnormal, sexually inept animals, scientists say.

In the wild, young chimpanzees grow up watching their elders mating, nursing and raising infants, and they develop strong bonds with siblings as they play and learn together. "We now know that without this normal social development, chimps are not effective breeders," said Thomas Wolfle, a veterinarian with the National Institutes of Health who has helped develop the new national strategy.

In part the problem is that the socially deprived animals never learn how to copulate or care for infants. An excited male "will try to mount the female, but he won't know where to start," said Dr. Wolfle. "And the inept females will jerk away anyway." Females that do give birth may neglect their infants, refuse to breastfeed them or throw them violently.

But the poor breeding performance stems more from psychological damage than from ignorance, many scientists believe. "What's missing in these animals is self-confidence," said Dr. James Mahoney, chief of reproduction at LEMSIP. "And to gain that confidence they need a mother's love."

Some of the young females "actually scream at the approach of a male," said Dr. Mahoney, while others try to divert an excited male's attention by grooming him furiously until he forgets what he came for. Some males seem to lack any desire to copulate at all.

Higher Fees Expected

Intense research on the biology and psychology of chimpanzee reproduction and on techniques of artificial insemination, which has shown little success so far, will also be pursued as part of the national plan.

Federal officials say they do not expect to subsidize breeder chimpanzees indefinitely. Rather, their goal is to provide "seed money" for the renovation of cages and living facilities, for initial maintenance of the breeders and for research on chimpanzee reproduction and infant socialization. Over time, they say, those who use animals in research projects, who customarily "rent" the animals on a temporary basis from permanent primate facilities, should begin paying much higher fees that reflect the true costs of raising a chimpanzee and keeping it for life.

Keeping a chimpanzee costs about $5,000 a year. Over its 30 to 50 year lifespan, then, an animal's maintenance ranges from $150,000 to $250,000.

Economic questions have come to the fore as more chimpanzees, now some 250 of them, have been used in research on the non-A non-B form of hepatitis. Following such experiments, the animals and their offspring must be sequestered from "clean" chimpanzees for life. Some have gone into behavioral experiments and some are now used in AIDS research, but many of the compromised animals are not wanted by experimenters.

The quest continues for a test that can reveal which of the research veterans carry the hepatitis virus. Meanwhile, that very search, which is of great import for human health, contaminates 50 more animals every year.

The costly lifetime support of contaminated chimpanzees now "comes out of the hide" of the institutions that keep them, said Nate Flesness of the International Species Inventory System in Apple Valley, Minn., which is monitoring the nation's chimpanzee population.

An April 1984 draft of the new national plan, now disavowed by officials, called the hepatitis-compromised animals "a major economic burden" and suggested that primate centers might consider euthanizing those for which no research use could be found. But the notion of killing healthy chimpanzees generated strong opposition.

"These chimps have served humanity, and the least we owe them is a decent retirement," said Shirley McGreal, director of the International Primate Protection League.

'Euthanasia Issue Is Dead'

The protests have apparently had the desired effect. Last March a panel of Federal research administrators concluded that while "euthanasia may be financially advantageous," it "may not be tenable in view of the intense public interest in the fate of these animals," and called for study of alternatives.

"The euthanasia issue is dead," said Dr. Wolfle.

Officials acknowledge, however, that their current proposals simply defer the problem of how to support contaminated chimpanzees. Some scientists privately say they fear that, because of the extreme financial pressures, some centers may design unnecessary "terminal" experiments with chimpanzees.

One alternative being explored is the development of island habitats, either in the United States or abroad, where contaminated animals can be maintained in quarantine at a lower cost than in research centers. Proponents note these animals could always be recalled for duty if needed. Also, when a test for non-A non-B viral infection is developed, many of the animals may turn out to be "clean" after all.

In a different approach entirely, the New York Blood Center has established a research facility in Liberia, in west Africa, which uses captured chimpanzees and hopes to return many research veterans to the wild. Scientists say it will be years before they know whether this will be feasible. In any case, they say, this cannot solve the American problem because chimpanzees born and raised in captivity could never survive amid wild chimpanzees, and contaminated animals should not be set loose. INDY, thin for his age of six weeks, stops sucking his bottle to rub irritated gums with his tongue: teeth are poking through, says Roxanne Werner, head of the chimpanzee nursery. She cradles and comforts him in an effort to help him overcome early days of deprivation.

The infant's real mother had refused to breastfeed, so he had to be brought to the nursery to join others in need of human care.

One hundred-ninety chimpanzees, the nation's third largest colony, are kept here at New York University's Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) near Tuxedo, N.Y. Like several other research centers, this one is trying to enrich the lives of young animals in the hope that they will grow up to be healthier mentally and better at breeding than existing captive-born chimpanzees, many of which are incompetent at mating and childrearing. In a recent tour of the facility, Dr. James Mahoney, director of reproduction and infant care, explained the new approach.

The most important change, Dr. Mahoney said, is keeping newborns with their mothers and other family members for 12 to 18 months instead of removing them at six months as in the past. (Some facilties remove them immediately after birth.) The early experience of mother love and social ties will make for happy, self-confident adults who are better able to mate and rear young, many experts believe. Here, after being taken from their mothers, young chimpanzees spend at least another six months in a stimulating nursery, and they are not used in medical experiments before the age of two.

The cages for adult animals -which are large, powerful and dangerous - have been rebuilt with connecting passages that allow selected animals to interact. "It's not like being outside, but it's infinitely better than before, with one animal per cage," Dr. Mahoney said. Within the strictures imposed by caging, he is trying to encourage development of small social groups. In two of the connected cages, for example, are an adult male and two adult females, both gently fondling their babies.

Infants whose mothers cannot nurture them are raised in a nursery where they are bottle-fed to the age of two. Each of the nursery infants has a different story: This one's mother had worked in a circus all her life and just didn't know how to care for a baby; that one's mother simply pushed her away. The staff is trying to provide them with the next best thing to a mother's upbringing.

The rooms are colorfully decorated, like a children's play area - "It affects the attitude of the people, which in turn benefits the animals," Dr. Mahoney observed - and numerous large windows have been installed at cage height so the young chimpanzees can constantly see fellow animals and human activity in the surrounding rooms. The animals are often allowed to wander and play outside their cages and they have a sturdy jungle gym to climb on.

Finding the nursery door open, three one-year-old males sidle into the hallway, clinging to each other for security as they examine a stranger. Blair, his confidence rising, hops against a window and pounds on it, displaying the rambunctious spirit of a well-adjusted chimpanzee. Ross musters his courage to touch the newcomer's shoe, then jumps when it twitches. Dr. Mahoney looks on like a proud father. "I think I have the nicest job here," he says. "And also the saddest."

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