Monkey shortage hampers research, scientists say

[Guest guest]

If these little guys are smart, they are 'willing' themselves out of

existance.

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> Monkey shortage hampers research, scientists say

>

> Saturday, August 9, 2003 Posted: 10:08 AM EDT (1408 GMT)

> ba9464a.jpg

>

> Scientists are paying up to $10,000 each for rhesus macaque monkeys.

>

>

> BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A nationwide shortage of rhesus macaque

> monkeys is hampering efforts to create cures from new information such as

> the human genome sequence, organ transplant techniques, and the use of

stem

> cells to replace diseased of damaged tissue, scientists say.

>

> The 15-pound monkeys have long been laboratory favorites because of their

> physiological similarity to humans. But increased demand caused by public

> health crises from AIDS to the threat of bioterrorism have led to shortage

> that's slowed research and has scientists paying up to $10,000 per animal.

>

> " The promise for improving health and quality of life in people is

> tremendous with this new information, but it all needs to be evaluated in

> animals before we start doing it in people, " Dr. Joseph Kemnitz, director

> of the National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin,

> told The Boston Globe. " People are just unable to perform the research

that

> they intended to do. "

>

> Eight federally funded centers, which breed the monkeys and carry out

> experiments for researchers around the world, have increased the total

> number of monkeys from about 12,000 in 1996 to 15,000 now, but that is

> still not keeping up with demand, said Dr. Jerry Robinson, director of the

> National Primate Research Centers Program at the National Institutes for

> Health.

>

> It is difficult to build up the monkey population because they have a slow

> reproductive cycle.

>

> Dr. Ruth Ruprecht of Harvard Medical School had to slow down her AIDS

> research because of the shortage. Ruprecht, who works at the Dana Farber

> Cancer Institute, and Dr. Judy Lieberman are working on a promising oral

> AIDS vaccine but had to wait a year for an NIH grant big enough to buy,

> house and study 86 rhesus monkeys, at a cost of $400,000, in the first

year

> of their $12 million project.

>

> The shortage " is slowing down AIDS research; there's no doubt about it, "

> Ruprecht said.

>

> The shortage may even get worse, scientists said. The NIH are handing out

> $1.4 billion in new grants for research into bioterrorism agents,

including

> anthrax. That growing field could have as great an impact as the AIDS

> crisis, which increased demand for monkeys by about 30 percent, Kemnitz

said.

>

> Scientists are asking the NIH for $100 million to expand and modernize the

> eight research centers and to pay for new background research on other

> monkey species for scientific use.

>

> The shortage has been known about for years, but scientists have tried to

> address it quietly because of the fear of backlash from animal rights

groups.

> http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/08/09/monkey.shortage.ap/index.html