Hep C Research Chimps May Be Switched Out for Mice
Share
Follow Us
Mouse hepatitis virus may help end chimp research
15 April 2013 by Sara Reardon
A newly discovered rodent virus that resembles hepatitis C could give research chimps a break.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is expected to make a decision imminently on how many of its 360 research chimps should be retired on the grounds that most studies can be done in other animals. One exception, however, is research on the hepatitis C virus (HCV): chimps are the only species whose immune systems respond to HCV – which primarily affects the liver – in the same way as humans. But now it seems that working with a similar virus in deer mice could offer an alternative.
In 2011, partly in response to increasing pressure from activists, a US Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel issued a report concluding that most medical research using great apes is no longer justified. The report’s summary said that researchers should avoid experiments on animals so closely related to humans unless the work is impossible to carry out in other animals or “is of sufficient scientific or health value to offset the moral costs”.
Continue reading this entire article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23383-mouse-hepatitis-virus-may-help-end-chimp-research.html
