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A Plea For the Chimps

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June 21, 1987, Section 6, Page 86Buy Reprints
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Jane Goodall wants the public to believe that all scientific institutions house primates in small, cramped cages. This isn't so. For example, most of the chimpanzees at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center live in social groups. Play equipment, large indoor rooms, outdoor play yards and social companionship with peers are provided for the young animals. Even many of the chimpanzees involved in studies of AIDS live in pairs, in cage units much larger than the sizes quoted by Dr. Goodall.

Dr. Goodall mistakenly states that chimpanzees are ''not good models'' for AIDS research because ''no chimp has yet come down with the disease itself.'' However, chimpanzees are the only animals that can be infected with the same virus that causes AIDS in humans. They are probably going to be crucial to the development and testing of vaccines that will prevent infection by the AIDS virus. Several experimental vaccines that had promising effects in tissue cultures of human cells and lower laboratory animals are being tested now in chimpanzees at the Yerkes Center and other scientific institutions. FREDERICK A. KING Director, Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center Emory University Atlanta