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Title: For elderly chimps: retirement or research? Post by: Bobbie Ireland on 02-Sep-10, 04:59:50 AM ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — Flo the chimpanzee bounds about her enclosure, hurls a rubber ball, then stares quizzically at the New Mexico green chili pepper that will be her morning snack. It has been a long time since Flo was on exhibit at the Memphis Zoo, even longer since she learned to smoke cigarettes during a stint with the circus. Most recently, she was a research chimpanzee here in New Mexico, part of an expansive biomedical testing program for hepatitis C and HIV. At the moment, though, she is out of a job — but perhaps not for long. Flo and the 185 other chimpanzees who live at the Alamogordo Primate Facility at Holloman Air Force Base have not been research subjects for nearly a decade — part of an agreement between the National Institutes of Health and the military, which prohibits using the animals for biomedical tests on the base... But recently, the health institute decided it wanted to use the chimp colony for medical research again... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/us/02chimps.html?ref=todayspaper |