Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pamela Sywnford de Beaufort) co-wrote a piece for the Hill’s Congress Blog about the The Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act 2012. The post, which appeared online today, was written in collaboration with Martin Wasserman, MD, JD who serves as the director of immunization practices for the vaccine division of GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals.

In this particular post, the two discuss a way to improve human health and put an end to chimpanzee experimentation by telling readers exactly what passing this savings and protection act would mean for American tax payers and chimps.

Bauer van Straten and Wasserman state that millions of dollars have been allocated for HIV and other experiments using chimpanzees and they have yet to prove how the use of these animals benefit human health. In fact, a recent report from the National Institute of Health on chimpanzee experimentation has stated that the primates are not needed for any area of human health research. Pharmaceutical companies and the United States government are slowly starting to accept the truth that the animals, who are very intelligent, able to communicate complex emotions, use tools, and grieve their dead do not exhibit health issues in the same way that humans do.

Wasserman’s employer, GlaxoSmithKline has not used chimpanzees for experimentation since 2008 and the US Food and Drug Administration does not require companies to do so. Two new drugs recently approved and released for the treatment of Hepetitis C were developed without using chimps and two more that are slated to come soon have not used it either in their development.

If passed, the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act 2012 would save tax payers over $330 million in the next 10 years and leave the chimpanzees in peace. In addition, room could be made for experiments that could greatly help progress human health research without hurting chimpanzees to do it. So far 175 congressional co-sponsors have signed on and want to see it pass this year.

So far the bill has been introduced and it has been referred to a committee. But Truebies here in the United States can also help to make sure this act will get passed by writing a letter to your representative just like I did. I used the website Open Congress.org to write a letter to my own representatives which you can view here. You can also use the site to write your own!

Source: The Hill.com- “A shared passion for ending chimpanzee experiments”

Image Credit: ALDF