Chimpanzees used for medical testing 'show signs of torture' (The Independent)

[struggle4progress]

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Saturday, 2 August 2008

Chimpanzees subjected to medical experiments suffer similar psychiatric symptoms to those shown by tortured humans, according to a study to be released next week.

An assessment of the behaviour of 116 chimpanzees who have been involved in animal research found that 95 per cent display at least one of the distinctive patterns of behaviour that people show when suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The chimps now live in a primate sanctuary in the United States but their unusual behaviour is still causing concern years after they were released from the animal-research laboratories in which they were experimented upon.

The findings, which will be made public at an international primate conference in Edinburgh on Monday, will be used to press for a Europe-wide ban on the use of great apes in medical research. Although experiments on chimps were banned in Britain in 1998, they are still legal in the rest of Europe even though the two research facilities where chimps had been kept have recently closed. However, in the US there is no such ban and about 1,200 chimps are still kept for medical research. Hope Ferdowsian, an American doctor who has treated torture patients from around the world, said that it is clear that chimps suffer many of the extreme psychological conditions shown by human torture victims ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/chimpanzees-used-for-medical-testing-show-signs-of-torture-883257.html

[madeline_con]

1. I wonder if McCain't's aggressive personality could be PTSD.

It's possible he's not mentally able to be Prez.

[elocs]

3. How does McCain goe through 5 years as a POW, being tortured,

and come home at the end of it without any psychological damage, wounds or PTSD? I anticipate he will blow a gasket before the election. These last 3 months Obama will campaign McCain into the ground until the old man winds up in the hospital.

[defendandprotect]

2. Animals are wired in the same way we are to feel pain --

they are our brothers and sisters on the planet ---