NIH Recommends Cutting Funding for Chimpanzee Experiments, Plans to Retire Many

January 2013

Following decades of campaigning by PETA to end experimentation on chimpanzees—including exposing cruelty in laboratories; filing complaints with federal agencies; reaching out to members of Congress; submitting formal comments to scientific, academic, and funding bodies; organizing demonstrations; filing shareholder resolutions; securing celebrity support; and mobilizing caring individuals to get involved—a National Institutes of Health (NIH) committee recommended that the agency cut funding for most current federally funded experiments on chimpanzees. The committee stated that “[t]he majority of NIH-owned chimpanzees should be designated for retirement and transferred to the federal sanctuary system.”