The Monkey Wars

Author:   Deborah Blum
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
ISBN:  

9780195094121


Pages:   317
Publication Date:   13 October 1994
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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The Monkey Wars


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Overview

The controversy over the use of primates in research continues. We have all benefited from the medical discoveries, yet we have also learned more in recent years about the real intelligence of apes and monkeys, and animal rights activists have uncovered widespread cases of animal cruelty by researchers. This study examines the often caustic debate over the use of primates in scientific research. The author interviews researchers forced to conduct their work behind barbed wire and alarm systems; and animal rights activists in groups ranging from the moderate AWI Institute to the highly radical ALF. Also studied are some of the remarkable chimpanzees on which this bitter feud centres.

Full Product Details

Author:   Deborah Blum
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.00cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 23.00cm
Weight:   0.684kg
ISBN:  

9780195094121


ISBN 10:   0195094123
Pages:   317
Publication Date:   13 October 1994
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

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Reviews

A penetrating look at the bitter controversy between animal rights activists and research scientists over the use of monkeys and chimpanzees in medical research. Given their proven intelligence, asks the author, can a chimp or monkey comprehend that it is being used by another species? It is not a question everyone wants to see answered. Blum, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the Sacramento Bee articles that led to this book, acknowledges that in tracing the history of primate research - and she discusses several horrendous abuses - any accounting must include the knowledge gained, the human lives saved. But some researchers who recognize the animals' suffering and strive for more humane handling, such as Roger Fouts at Central Washington University, find themselves ostracized and refused government funding. Fouts, renowned for his sign language work with the chimp Washoe, has battled the National Institutes of Health for years, finally filing suit to challenge its way of regulating experimental animal facilities. His 1986 visit, along with famed chimpanzee specialist Jane Goodall, to a notorious Maryland laboratory conducting AIDS research brought enough negative publicity to force some changes in the way the animals are caged. Other researchers, like Tom Gordon, director at Yerkes Field Station (a monkey farm in Georgia), fault both animal activists for making the monkeys too human and scientists for treating them as mere mechanical objects. Primates' humanlike physiology (a chimp's DNA is 98.5% identical to a human's) renders them perhaps indispensable in AIDS research and other crucial medical experiments. But, as Blum shows, it is their humanlike nature and their intelligence that give rise to important questions about ethics and respect for life. As a solution, Blum has nothing better to offer than a vague suggestion for education programs aimed at reaching a troubled middle ground. But she brings the issues into sharp, disturbing focus. (Kirkus Reviews)


Author Information

About the Author: Deborah Blum won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for a series of articles that have inspired this book

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