The Ethical Dilemma of Primate Testing in Medicine

Planet Earth has been in a constant state of change for the length of its existence, which is close to five billion years. The first life that began to form was bacteria and that was 1.5 billion years after the Earth formed. Bacteria moved to fish, the fish sprouted legs and went onto land, then the fish turned into reptiles (dinosaurs) then they ruled planet. Only two hundred million years ago mammals came into the equation, and in the last 1.8 million so did the human race.

Humans are by far the most intelligent species that have ever come to live on the planet. Humans have done some amazing things, since their emergence, such as build immensely tall skyscrapers, built the car, invented the nuclear bomb, and found the cure to many deadly diseases. The cure for diseases and viruses came a lot in term from the medical experimentation of animals, namely primates such as chimpanzees and orangutans. The medical experimentation of these primates, though immoral and evil, should be used because: the primates are very similar to humans in terms of genetic makeup, scientists are able to find the cures for deadly diseases and viruses, and scientists and doctors are able to test the effectiveness of the drugs that they create in the labs.

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A little back ground on the topic of animal testing on chimps and orangutans. The first time a primate, chimps mainly, were used in testing was in the “1920s, when psychologist Robert M. Yerkes began studying the behavior of a chimpanzee” (savethechimps.

org, para 1). He did it to just communicate. To see if there was cogitatively something there. This was just used to get an understanding about a different animal. But later, different scientists implemented his findings into a medical aspect. They brought in orangutans as well. Researchers learned that these animals were kind of like people in a sense, so they thought that it would be a good idea to try using them for medical experiments and testing. They found out many things from these animals like chimps and orangutans that could be transferrable to humans. The learned that they were genetically similar as well and psychologically similar (but this essay won’t talk much about the mind).

As mentioned a little earlier, primates like those of chimpanzees and orangutans have a very similar genetic makeup as their human counterparts. Chimpanzees and orangutans are 98.8 percent similar in their DNA to humans. This means that these animals are the most similar living organisms that are currently coexisting with humans in terms of genetic makeup. An article by the University of California at Davis Primate Research Center quoted Dr. Jeffrey Kordower, a neuroscientist who examines how diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s affect the brain (UC Davis Article, para 4). Dr. Kordower stated that “Monkeys have certain traits and characteristics that make them essential and irreplaceable in medical research. They’re the bridge to the clinic”. Primates are able to help scientist put two and two together to be able to fully understand how the human body and mind work. In the same article by UC Davis, it also proclaims that “95 percent of the lab animals in scientific and medical research are rats and mice [and that] just half of 1 percent of research is conducted with nonhuman primates…but their impact on our health is enormous,” said FBR president Frankie Trull in paragraph 3 of the article. President Trull continues to add that “NHPs, mostly monkeys, are the link between smaller animals and people.” Trull later on goes on to say that, “Once a disease or drug is understood in smaller species – like rats, mice, birds, zebrafish and worms – it is often then studied in monkeys” (Trull, para 3). Because of the similarity between humans and these primates, scientist are able to test things that wouldn’t really be able to be studied with animals like rats for example.

The DNA is what causes these primates and humans to be similar. According to the article on AMNH, “Human and chimp DNA is nearly identical when you compare the bands on chromosomes, the bundles of DNA inside nearly every cell” (para 3). Later on the article explains that, “Human and chimp X chromosomes both contain about 1,100 different genes, or sets of instructions. Each gene affects a particular trait in the body” (AMNH, para 3). With humans and the primates being so 98.8 percent similar, these instructions are relatively the same. The only difference between the DNA of that of a chimp and that of a human is the size of the strands in the chromosome of the two. That size of the chromosome strand means the difference between being human and an ape. When it comes to studying the brain, primates are the best option. According to an article on greenfacts.org, “ non-human primates (NHPs) and humans have very similar brains, experiments on primates remain crucial. At present, primates are the only animals available to study how the activity of a single nerve cell is related to more complicated brain functions” (para 20). Chimpanzees and orangutans are help researchers with studies of how the body and mind work because of the immense similarities between them. In an article by ncbi.org, there is a quotes that is very important regarding the brain. The article by ncbi states that, “while rodents are used extensively and are extremely helpful in answering many basic research questions, their usefulness is limited by differences from primates in their lack of sophisticated brain structures, less developed immune systems and motor skills, and differences in how their metabolism functions, among other traits” (ncbi.org, para 8).

With the understanding that chimpanzees and orangutans are very mentally and genetically similar to humans, scientists then were able to find the cures to the deadly diseases and viruses that affect the world. With the knowledge that these animals provide in terms that they are very similar with humans, they are able to provide humans with the ability to find cures for illnesses. Many deadly diseases that have existed for decades that could have been solved because of the use of chimps and orangutans in medical research. When malaria first came up in 1880, it was devastating. People didn’t know what was going on, let alone know the cure. The disease took the lives of millions of people through the course of a couple decades. However, during the late 20th century, scientists began to use NHPs in the search for the cure. “The owl monkey and the squirrel monkey are the only species (besides the chimpanzee) that are susceptible to the human malaria parasite” as stated by the article in greenfact.org. With the use of these primates, scientists were able to pin point were the disease came from and how it was interacting with the body. Researchers were also able learn key information about the malaria disease.

In the NCBI article, is is states that, “NHPs are also the main animals that allow quick response and research into emerging viruses” (ncbi, para 9). These animals like chimpanzees and orangutans help doctors in real time find/ locate what the problem is with the human, and help find the remedy that could save their life. For example, in the greenfacts article, “it is very difficult to develop a vaccine against malaria because there are four different parasites that cause the disease and because each parasite goes through four different stages during the course of its infection of a human host, each time presenting different substances that the human immune system has to fight (antigens)” (greenfacts.org, 2.2.3). This knowledge wasn’t known when the disease first came into the global picture. But now, with the knowledge that is now possessed by scientists and doctors, the numbers in deaths have significantly diminished. Not as many people will struggle with the health issues that diseases, like malaria, has plagued to world with. HIV/AIDS was always around, but had a spike in the late 1900s. The people that were the most susceptible were gay men from Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. As stated in the previous paragraph, chimps and orangutans were the bridge that humans need to understand disease with the human body. Peta.org constructed and article about why NHPs were used in medical experiments, namely with regards to disease and viruses. They state that, “in 1995—after hundreds of chimpanzees … —the National Institutes of Health (NIH) imposed a moratorium on the breeding of chimpanzees when it was discovered that they don’t get sick from HIV infection and don’t contract AIDS” (para 4). With the gained knowledge, they were able to locate the gene that didn’t make them susceptible and see if they could transfer that to humans. Since then, the deaths from the virus has gone down significantly. With the bringing in of primates into medical research, disease and viruses like polio, tuberculosis, hepatitis, malaria, and HIV to name a few, scientists were able find the cures for them ad save the lives of many.

With the use of the chimpanzees and orangutans in the medical field, doctors will be able to better test the effectiveness of the pharmaceutical drugs that they create. Because of the fact that these particular primates have a very close similar genetic makeup to humans, means that they are the best candidate. Rats are by far the most readily available, but they aren’t really that close to people, but they are used the most. An article by europa.eu regarding the testing of primates stated that, “results from research on non-human primates can often be applied to humans, and scientists have learned much about diseases, disorders, prevention and treatments for both humans and animals” (europa.ed, para 1). In simple terms, primates like that of chimpanzees and orangutans are basically a window into the human make up. Everything that is learned through them is transferrable to the human race. If the scientists and doctors are able to find out if their remedies are able work on the chimpanzees and orangutans, then therefore they can adjust the formulas in the medicine slightly so that it will be able to work with the human counterparts. Scientist and doctors can see if the drug will cause any reaction that might be seen as unhealthy, like a flaring up in skin tissue in result to a new pill. Primates like the ones listed are the last line of defense when it comes to curing humanities ailments. “Scientists use monkeys only when no other research model can provide the required information” (ncbi.gov, para 8) as states by a primate’s experimentation article from ncbi.gov. Animals like rats are great for testing out how a certain make up remover or nail polish would work for example, but when it comes to medical. Primates should be the only ones that are tested. This is because everything that can be learned and transferred, is done through them. Without them, there is not real understanding and knowledge of the human body. Most of the diseases that have harmed the world would not have been eradicated if not for the testing of chimpanzees and orangutans. Only through that knowledge that scientists gained from the testing of chimpanzees and orangutans, were they able to find what was harming humanity.

Even though the use of primate like chimpanzees and orangutans should not be used in medical testing, there are way too many benefits of using them rather than not. Many of humanities medical mysteries and problems could have been solved relatively easier than before with the use of them because of their genetic similarity, the ability to pin point the problem with the ability to find the cure, and the ability to test the vaccines and medicine. These animals are basically the back bone of the human race. They are the closest living things that are similar to people. This means that without them, there would be no chance of solving the problems that have arisen in the same manner of time as with them around.