Gorman, James. "Use of Chimps Halted in New U.S.-Funded Research." Nytimes.com. 15 Dec. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Use of Chimps Halted in New U.S.-Funded Research
This article begins with the shocking news that recently, the National Institutes of Health decided to suspend any new grants for biomedical and behavioral research on chimpanzees. The director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis S. Collins, said, “the chimps, as the closest human relatives, deserve special consideration and respect.” The Institutes stated that they found most research on chimpanzees unnecessary. The report the N.I.H. gave said that not all research on chimps will end, due to the necessity of Hepatitis C preventative vaccine testing and also important immunology testing done on chimps involving monoclonal antibodies. Animal rights groups and activists are happy with this small step forward to end testing on chimpanzees. Hopefully after these efforts by the N.I.H. will influence the outcome of two other continuous efforts to stop research on chimps, the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act of 2011, and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to declare captive chimps endangered. If this were to happen, chimps would not be used for any experimentation. The use of chimps, according to the article, has been slowing due to how expensive it is. When the decision was made to halt the use of chimps in new U.S.-funded research, reports offered criteria in which it would be necessary to use chimps. One of these were in the case of biomedical experiments where there is no other options, chimps may be used (only in the case that if there was not testing no progress would be made).
This absolutely is relevant to humanity because animal testing has been such a major issue in society. Many groups have been fighting hard to stop it completely, but this movement by the N.I.H. is truly taking a step in the right direction for animal rights. Chimpanzees are so much like humans, and don’t deserve any harmful testing to be done upon them. Although they are close enough the humans that the results of the tests are very accurate, we must consider the lives of the animals at hand.
This article was most definitely well written and very informative. However, it was extremely wordy as well. At some points it was really hard to follow what the author was trying to say. I never have looked into the steps that major organizations are taking to support animal rights, and this article helped me understand some major movements, especially entailing the rights of chimpanzees. If this article were less wordy and easier to understand, it would have been much more interesting then it already was.
Amy Pepe’s review of the article “Use of Chimps Halted in New U.S.-Funded Research” was thorough and very detailed. One thing that I especially enjoyed was her informative description of pending legislation that aims to end animal testing on chimpanzees. Furthermore, I appreciated Ms. Pepe’s inclusion of a quotation from a key figure in this breaking news story, Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health. This provided the reader with insight and gave the review a sense of validity as a whole. Finally, I enjoyed Ms. Pepe’s consideration of the response from various animal rights groups and activists to this story. This thorough analysis made the review very well rounded and left the reader feeling quite satisfied.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, I felt that the review could be improved by including certain additional information. One thing that I noticed Ms. Pepe left out was the negative societal effects of this story. While the ending of testing on chimpanzees is a tremendous breakthrough, it will most definitely make research substantially more difficult, something that she failed to mention. Additionally, Ms. Pepe forgot to include a link to the original article which she had reviewed.
Nonetheless, I fully enjoyed Amy Pepe’s review and was excited to learn about this announcement. I previously had no idea that testing on chimpanzees was so close to ending, but this review opened my mind to such a possibility.
Amy Pepe’s review of “Use of Chimps Halted in New US-Funded Research” was intellectually stimulating and relevant to a major issue prevalent in today’s society. I particularly liked her thorough review of the article, especially after reading the third paragraph where she mentions the article was incredibly wordy and hard to follow. She managed to concisely restate the main idea along with the implications in an easy to follow and coherent manner. Working on this point, I liked how she provided her own opinions into the implications of this new decision and how it is a major step in the animal rights movement. Finally, she offered constructive criticism to the author that would make the article significantly more appealing to other readers.
ReplyDeleteWhile Amy did a very good job overall on this review, several points could be modified to improve the quality of the review as a whole. Primarily, there were a few grammatical errors that should be noted, especially in the final paragraph. Second, while Ms. Pepe noted that even though chimpanzees are similar to humans in terms of testing, she did not mention anything about how we will now test vaccines and the like. Though this may not have been included in the original article, where will we now test experimental treatments, and what are the costs going to be, are high priority questions and implications that simply seemed left out.
In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Amy’s review and was excited to see animal rights movement headed in such a positive direction. The most interesting point I found was that chimpanzee testing ended so abruptly with the passage of the ideal.
Amy did an excellent job reviewing the article, “Use of Chimps Halted in U.S.-Funded Research.” One aspect of her review that was particularly well done was her critique of the author. It pointed out specific things that they could have improved upon, such as the word length and how indirect the article was at times. Also, Amy included many essential details in her summary of the article. For instance, she mentioned exceptions to this new ban for testing things like Hepatitis C. Finally, Amy was able to include a quote from the head of the organization that made the ban, which was very effective.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few things that Amy could have done better. There were a few grammatical mistakes, such as using “were” instead of “was” in the sentence, “one of these....” Also, her sentence structure was a bit choppy; she could have made better transitions. She also forgot to include a link to the article, making it hard for the reader to find the original.
One thing that I learned was how many organizations there are currently working for the cause of chimps, and the success that they are having. The Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act of 2011, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, and many other animal rights activists are working hard to better the situations of apes and chimpanzees.
Amy Pepe’s review of “Use of Chimps Halted in New U.S. – Funded Reseach” was excellently done, describing the situation with much clarity and accuracy. She described the legislation with much knowledge, discussing at length the aims to end animal testing in the United States. Ms. Pepe added many statistics and in particular added a quotation from the article itself from Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institute of Health. The addition of a quotation gave her review more credibility, as well as adding a valued perspective. I also enjoyed Ms. Pepe’s own personal opinions on the matter, including that of many activist groups addressing the issue, adding to the overall impact of her review.
ReplyDeleteThough her review was excellently written, and included much of the information within the article, there were certain facts that could have helped to make her review more powerful. For example, she could have added information regarding the impact on society that using chimps has caused. Amy also forgot to discuss the difficulties now facing many of the researchers who depended on testing on chimps. Again, Ms. Pepe forgot to add the link of the article mentioned, making it more difficult to find the actual article itself.
Overall Ms. Pepe’s review was an excellent way to learn more about the ending of chimpanzee testing. One of the most interesting facts I discovered was how abrupt the end of the testing came about.
AP Biology John Harrison
ReplyDeleteCommentaries 12/27
I very much enjoyed Amy’s article and there were many points that were presented well. First, she presented well why that the National Institutes of Health put a halt of Chimpanzee testing. According to the NIH, chimpanzees deserve special consideration because they are so closely related to humans. She also presented well the fact that testing on chimpanzees is necessary. Testing on chimpanzees is necessary to Hepatitis C research and vaccine testing. Amy also presents well the proposed uses for which chimps can be experimented on. The only cases in which chimps can be used in biomedical experiments are when experimentation is absolutely necessary.
While Amy presented many points very well, there are some aspects of her review that can be reviewed upon. When making a review it is very important to try and stay unbiased. Amy fails to stay unbiased in her second paragraph when she states “the NIH is truly taking a step in the right direction for animal rights.” By using the wording “truly” and the overall connotation of the sensation it creates doubt whether Amy is completely unbiased when creating this review. Also, Amy could try and polish her report by fixing all of her spelling and grammatical mistakes. For example, she states “if this article were less wordy” when it should be “was less.” Fixing this, along with the few other mistakes, would add to the overall quality of her review.
I found it amazing that chimps are used in Hepatitis C research. Not only was I unaware of the fact that chimps were being experimented on before this article, but the fact that they are essential to Hepatitis C research is very interesting indeed.