Special Report

As science turns from chimp research, U.S. wants to restart

About 180 chimpanzees at a federal primate facility in the New Mexico desert are at the center of an impassioned debate between the National Institutes of Health and the animal-rights community. The NIH wants to move the chimps away from Alamogordo, where they'll be allowed to be put back into research. Animal-rights activists want them retired to a grassy sanctuary. The use of chimps in research has been a hot-button issue for years. » read more

Some chimps never recover from stresses of research

The debate about medical testing on chimpanzees often revolves around the physical impact on the chimps — week after week of liver biopsies or year after year of being infected with HIV or hepatitis. But an examination by McClatchy of the chimp-research world found that, in addition to a physical toll, the testing life can have a significant impact on a chimp's mental state. » read more

Some lab chimps left with poor health, shortened lives

They've been out of the lab for years, but for many chimpanzees at a federal primate facility in New Mexico, the effects of long-ago medical experimentation can linger till they die. In pursuit of cures for humans, some chimpanzees' lives are cut short. » read more