Posted on 06/23/2006 3:51:41 AM PDT by Teacher317
ATLANTA - Primate expert Jane Goodall and 18 other researchers sent a letter to federal officials urging them to oppose an Atlanta research center's proposal to do AIDS-related research on sooty mangabey monkeys.
The letter urges the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to reject a request by the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, according to a copy filed with the government.
Scientists at the research center have nurtured a group of the primates, which are natural carriers of a form of the AIDS virus but don't get sick from it, since the late 1960s. But federal officials listed them as endangered in 1988, leaving the center with the world's largest collection of captive sooties but little hope of scientific benefit.
The research center argues that its mangabeys, a subspecies of the endangered white-collared mangabey, aren't truly endangered. It is asking Fish & Wildlife to consider the subspecies separately.
Yerkes officials are proposing helping conserve sooties in the African wild in exchange for permission to do AIDS-related research on captive sooties.
Federal officials have said such a trade-off has never before been permitted. In a letter dated June 19, Goodall and others say they hope it never is.
The letter, provided to the Associated Press by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said approving such a deal "could open the floodgates to future permit applications premised on allowing entities to kill or otherwise harm endangered species in exchange for making financial contributions to conservation programs."
Goodall could not be reached for comment, but her involvement was confirmed by a spokeswoman with the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation.
PETA, the New England Anti-Vivisection Society and eight other advocacy groups also submitted comments opposing the research center's application.
British-born Goodall began studying chimpanzees in Tanzania in 1960. Her studies have helped revolutionize humanity's understanding of chimps.
Last year, Yerkes, which is part of Emory University, began providing up to $30,000 a year to a primatologist's conservation and research of sooties in the Tai National Park Reserve in Ivory Coast, West Africa.
In July, the center wrote Fish & Wildlife seeking the right to conduct research on the Yerkes sooties "given our contribution to sooty mangabey conservation."
Tim Van Norman, the Fish & Wildlife official to whom the letter was addressed, could not be reached for comment.
A Yerkes spokeswoman declined to comment. She said Fish & Wildlife held a public comment period on the research center's application that ran from May 18 until June 19.
Now here we are with a species that shows some promise in the battle against the modern plague, and who is standing in the way? You get 3 guesses, and the first two don't count.
Yet more proof, as if it were needed, the Leftists and liberals are utter hypocrites, almost always lie about their actual motivations, and simply despise technological advancement.
PETA has an excellent solution to the problem.
Slaughter them all and dump the bodies in parking lot dumpsters. Quick, meaningless, painless deaths are preferable to deaths at the hands of capitalist devils in pursuit of a cure for a deadly disease.
I have no use for people who expose themselves to diseases that can be easily avoided. AIDS is about as preventable a disease as their is. Keep it zipped, keep the legs together or pay the consequences.
That being said, it must be understood that PEOPLE COME FIRST. If a disease can be cured by research on animals.....then lets get going.
the suicidal PETA @ssholes can go pound sand. We will utilize whatever we need to survive as the Human race and although we should be stewards of the land and 'conserve' our resources, our survival is paramount.
Wouldn't you just love to see a good knock-down drag-out between PETA and ACT UP?
I can already hear the heads exploding over at the ACLU.
Sodomites should volunteer for AIDS research.
Oh, now they've done it. They've set up a civil war between PETA and the HIV lobby.
Should be fun.
And make sure you don't get born to someone with HIV. Or need a blood transfusion.
yes but is that(being born) the leading cause of aids??? and if those who spread it with their nasty lifestyles were to curtail those behaviors, then their progeny would also be clean of the disease....
...... and I happen to work with blood products, I've been in the industry since before HIV, and the amount of contamination in 1st world countries is nihl or lower...that is no longer an issue.
for those who live in the 3rd world, good luck, but I did cover that issue with my statement about needing to research on animals (that goes for being born with HIV too)........ in the final analysis, whats your problem?
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