Yes! We have no bananas, we have no bananas today.
One of the more upsetting stories in recent days concerns the threat of starvation facing the chimps of Monkey Island.
The colony of over sixty individuals, is composed of ex-lab animals who played a vital role for many years in biomedical research for the New York Blood Center. Amongst other things, they helped scientists discover a vaccine for hepatitis and gain an international reputation for their work in the field of viral infections.
The NYBC, which established the apes in their idyllic new retirement home a decade ago, deep in the jungle of southern Liberia, has shockingly reneged on a promise to provide lifelong care by suddenly withdrawing the funds needed for supplies of fresh food and water, thus effectively leaving them to die.
This action has - not surprisingly - been condemned by numerous groups and charities and prompted a letter of moral rebuke from Jane Goodall. But, for me, it's not merely a matter of animal welfare; it's also a class issue to do with workers' rights in retirement, ensuring they can live out their days in freedom and security. It should thus also solicit full union support.
These chimps are not wild animals; most spent decades as test subjects and part of an involuntary labour force. Some were born and raised in captivity. All are therefore fully deserving of compensation in my view, or a decent pension - particularly when this is essentially just the provision of a few bananas and maybe the odd mango.
The $30,000 monthly cost of care is peanuts for a prestigious (and profitable) institution such as the NYBC which has hundreds of millions in revenue each year. They should not only be reminded of the written commitment made in 2005 by then director Alfred Prince to provide a sanctuary and look after the chimps, but legally obliged to honour such.
And it shouldn't require the evolution of a Caesar figure to ensure this ...
Note: those interested in the chimps of Monkey Island might like to view a short documentary from the makers of 20th Century Fox's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes available on YouTube: click here.
Those interested in the campaign to end the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research should click here.
A sad story worthy of more attention than it is presently receiving. Just to make it clear, however, that if the abject neglect abuse of these chimps on Monkey Island by the NYBC is not bad enough, unlike the retired workers, their exploitation in years of biomedical research wasn’t nearly as fruitful as researchers would have you believe. The validity of the chimpanzee model in past hepatitis virus vaccines development has always been exaggerated and any claims of their current and future indispensability are unjustifiable. The chimpanzee model has made a relatively negligible contribution to knowledge of, and tangible progress against, the hepatitis viruses compared to non-chimpanzee research, and must be considered scientifically redundant in light of the array of alternative methods now available and the potential these methods hold. The continuation of chimpanzee use in viral infections research adversely affects scientific progress, as well as chimpanzees and humans in need of treatment. The US remains the only significant user of chimps in biomedical research in the world since many countries have banned or limited the practice due to substantial ethical, economic and scientific concerns.
ReplyDeleteSo, it's not merely a matter of animal welfare for the chimps; or a class issue for workers rights, but a species issue: here we have chimpanzees who are so human like that some justify their use in medical research, yet when it comes to respecting their most fundamental rights to life and protection they are so unhuman as to be undeserving.
I'm largely sympathetic with what you write here and thank you for your comments.
DeleteI certainly agree, for example, that the issue of animal welfare needs to be contextualised within a wider philosophical debate to do with speciesism and what Derrida terms carnophallogocentrism.