A Decline in Chimp Research (Picture of the Day: 1/27/13)

A group of chimpanzees socializing. Source

After a new study showed that chimpanzees have a sense of fairness, it has been recommended to the  National Institutes of Health that chimpanzee research be stopped. The general consensus is that chimpanzees are self aware beings with inherent rights, and thus cannot be the subjects of invasive and non-concentual research. If these recommendations are followed, all but 50 of the current 451 chimpanzees owned for research purposes in the United States would be taken to sanctuaries and allowed to live "normal" lives, free from the possibly dangerous experiments that prompted the recommendations in the first place. All in all, these recommendations are praised as being a good thing. Supposedly we are not getting good results from the research that we are doing in the first place, so losing all of these research chimps will not harm our scientific progress. I have always believed that other animals besides humans are self aware and have inherent rights, so seeing this new found awareness is encouraging. I, like many other people, have some concerns that scientific progress might be slowed or halted, but we should be fine.

To learn more, read this article.