In late April, a US judge granted lawyers acting for two chimpanzees used in research at Stony Brook University, Hercules and Leo, a hearing about their unlawful imprisonment. The case will test legal personhood for the animals. But in Australia, non-human primates may be about to see their circumstances change for the worse because of an impending research ethics policy change.
Public consultation on the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) draft Principles and guidelines for the care and use of non-human primates for scientific purposes will close today (Friday May 8). The document, which is an update of a 2003 policy and complements the Australian code for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes, will remove some existing safeguards for ethical use of these animals in research.
In Australia, regulatory responsibility for animal welfare, including the care and use of non‐human primates in research and teaching, rests with state and territory governments. While the NHMRC’s code is not legally binding, it requires researchers it funds to follow its policy on animal welfare.
The new draft guidelines
The code requires researchers to minimise harm, pain and distress to the animals they use. It states all teaching and research activities “must balance whether the potential effects on the wellbeing of the animals involved is justified by the potential benefits”. But it doesn’t provide guidance on how to do this, so it’s up to researchers and local animal ethics committees to determine what procedures are justified.
Great apes (gorilla, orang‐utan, chimpanzee and bonobo) and other non-human primates are treated differently by the new draft. The use of great apes in research is permitted only when it “will not have any appreciable negative impact on the animals involved, e.g. observational studies, activities already being undertaken for management or veterinary purposes” or when it “will potentially benefit the individual animal and/or their species”. The former was not included in previous guidelines, so this is a step forward.
But, to my knowledge, great apes have not been used in Australian research for a long time. While this new clause will protect great apes from being used in NHMRC-funded research, it is unlikely to impact current research practice.
Other non-human primates used for research (macaques, marmosets and baboons) are not so lucky. The NHMRC has already acknowledged that non-human primates have the capacity to suffer more than other research animals because of their higher cognitive abilities and well-developed social structures. In spite of this, many of its purported protections are ambiguous and ultimately meaningless.
Weak protections
The NHMRC wants feedback on proposed changes to requirements that its animal welfare committee be notified when non-human primates are to be housed for periods longer than six weeks without access to an outside enclosure, or imported.
The reason for the latter is that importing animals is subject to Commonwealth regulation. But since the draft guidelines still require notification of export of non-human primates, there is no good reason why import should not be treated in the same way. The public has an interest to know, and this information would be difficult, if not impossible, to collect from animal ethics committees.
Removing the requirement on housing weakens animal protection because it shifts power from the NHMRC’s animal welfare committee to local animal ethics committees. Not requiring local committees to justify their decisions to an external body could enable conditions that are not in the animals’ interest.
![](https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/80767/width668/image-20150507-19413-opwht8.jpg)
Central overview checks potential abuse through oversight as well as overcoming lack of knowledge and expertise among small local animal ethics committees. Self-regulation is not sufficient to protect animals who cannot speak for themselves; we need more transparency to ensure this is happening, not less.