Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 278, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 25, 1978 Page: 19 of 48
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25. 1978
Sunday, June 25,1*78
Page3B
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THE DENTON RECORD CHRONICLE
Vaccine spawns fight for chimps
By NICHOLAS WADE
Pacific News Service
and Wildlife Service for a permit to import 125
chimpanzees from Sierra Leone After using
18
3-
them far tests, the company plans to transfer
Just as scientists have begun to make them to a breeding colony.
headway in developing a common language - Merck's application is fiercely opposed by
with chimpanzees, a human-simian conflict of conservationists and primatologists who
interests threatens the dwindling species with contend that Sierra Leone has few dumps left
extinction, and that those exported are captured in
Chimpanzees are the only species other neighboring counties, especially Guinea, and
than man on which the safety of a new vac- smuggled across the border.
cine against the liver disease hepatitis B can American primatologist Geza Teleki
be tested, according to researchers. Each estimated that Merck's order “would involve
animal can be used for only one test, the deaths of about 600 chimpanzees by the
If the vaccine is produced in quantity, many time 125 healthy chimpanzees were
of the 50,000 chimps that remain in the wild delivered."
might be killed or captured to stock the The standard methods of capture, ac-
breeding colonies of the makers of the sub- cording to primatologists, is to find a mother
stance with child and shoot the mother to recover the
On the other hand, if the chimpanzees are young Animalexporters pay native hunters a
protected - the species already is classified bounty without asking many questions.
as threatened - it might prove impossible to Merck officials maintained that they would
test safely and hence to manufacture the not buy inhumanely captured chimps. The
vaccine. method of capture is generally by locating a
Hepatitis B, which is transmitted by a virus group of chimpanzees, surrounding them with
found in most body fluids, is endemic in many a number of people and chasing them," a
parts of the world. In thei United States its Merck official told the Federal Wildlife
incidence is low, but it has been increasing Permit Office. “The juveniles would usually
from 1,500 reported cases in 1966 to 15,000 m tire first, and these were captured by hand."
1976 The Center for Disease Control in This account, supplied to the drug firm by
Atlanta estimated, however, that the true its proposed animal supplier in Sierra Leone,
incidence was 150,000. The disease is rarely was called “highly imaginative and pure
fatal, malarky" by Teleki
Hepatitis B tends to occur among people Jane Goodall, who has spent years in the
who receive blood transfusions, staff and African wild studying chimps, said the
patients of hemodialysis units, drug addicts technique is “totally impossible unless you
who inject the drug and people who have had big nets." William McGrew of Stirling
themselves tattooed. Other groups with a high University in Scotland said that "no human
incidence are male homosexuals and people being could keep up with a wild chimpanzee,
in institutions for the mentally retarded, much less run it to the ground” in the chimps'
It is transmitted through infected blood habitat.
products, but epidemiologists believe there Denial of the permit seems likely at the
might be other routes to contagion Often a moment. However, such an action will not
patient's spouse, but no other close family necessarily save the species Alan Creamer
member, contracts hepatitis B. leading associate director in charge of Merck’s
researchers to suspect that intimate contact animal resources, said makers of a vaccine in
is one route of transmission Japan and Poland already have contracted
Merck Sharp & Dohme, the only American far chimpanzees from Sierra Leone
pharmaceutical firm planning to produce Maurice Hilleman. Merck’s research
hepatitis B vaccine, has applied to the Fish director contended that chimpanzees will
inevitably be eradicated as African forests
are turned to farmland in his view, they
could best survive in breeding colonies such
as the one his firm proposes to establish
Without the unport permit, he said, "There
will be no hepatitis vaccine, period."
Another hepatitis B vaccine is being
to supply the manufacturers, however.
"There are occasions when it is justified to
use dumps for research,” said Goodall, “but
what upsets me is the conditions in which they
are kept They get lousy treatment. They are
kept in small cages with nothing to do, and
developed by Robert Purcell and others at the they are usually put in solitary confinement
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious when they get older. Vet these are creatures
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases. It is undergoing safety tests in
humans within a community of Trappist
monks in Georgia. So tar. it is proving
remarkably free of side effects
In anticipation of a shortage of chim-
panzees for testing, the government's vac-
cine-regulating agency, the Bureau of
Bologics, has established a breeding colony
for its own needs. The colony is not big enough
which we know can communicate in sign 4
language that seems very wrong to me"
Others argue that, since the world has a =
growing population of four billion humans and
a shrinking population of only 50,000 chim-
panzees, since the vaccine seems innocuous
and the disease is seldom fatal, humans
should solve their hepatitis problem without
the chimpanzees' help.
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Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 278, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 25, 1978, newspaper, June 25, 1978; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1703542/m1/19/?q=waco+tornado&rotate=0: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Denton Public Library.