NIH Denies Sanctuary to Dozens of Former Research Chimps

On October 1, the National Institutes of Health provided its annual update regarding government-owned and government-supported chimpanzees retired from research, including data on those who are still held in laboratories. The NIH has announced that the 37 chimpanzees at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico will remain at this research facility for the rest of their lives rather than be moved to the Chimp Haven sanctuary. In Texas, 54 chimps are still at the Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research in Bastrop, and 53 are at the Southwest National Primate Research Center in San Antonio. The NIH says the fate of these chimps is still under review. As noted in the winter 2019 AWI Quarterly, the NIH is giving a host of excuses for denying sanctuary for certain chimps.