Lennie the chimpanzee's story will shock you ...

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“Starting in the 1960s, Lennie, a chimpanzee, was strapped in a spacesuit for U.S. government test flights, and subjected to spinal taps. He was fed a banana laced with triparanol, a drug already removed from the market for humans...he was a breeder...he was infected with the HIV and hepatitis viruses and subjected time and again to blood draws and biopsies...” — Excerpt from the McClatchy Newspapers Special Report, “Chimps: Life in the Lab”     Lennie’s story begins one of the most shocking exposés in U.S. history, detailing decades of anguish, horror, fear and deception - a project carried out in the name of “science” - and unknowingly funded by American taxpayers with hundreds of millions of dollars. Spinal taps and endless blood draws - chimpanzees cut open and their organs directly injected with hepatitis. Of course, you would never choose to fund such barbaric projects. But taxpayers were never given the choice. Today, though, you do have a choice. To help undo the harm that’s been done. You can help end chimpanzee experimentation forever by sending a donation to In Defense of Animals. The story of Lennie and other chimpanzees is finally being told (thanks to IDA) in a special report by McClatchy Newspapers called “Chimps: Life in the Lab” - the most in-depth reporting on chimpanzee experimentation ever published. The report reveals that after enduring four decades of medical experimentation including at least four spinal taps, an agonizing bone marrow biopsy, and infection with HIV, Lennie collapsed in his cage and died – far from Africa, where his mother was killed and he was kidnapped from his home. At least 170 of Lennie’s cage‑mates still survive. That’s why I’m writing you now. Their nightmare may soon begin all over again. We need your help to save them from a return to the horrors of the laboratories - and to help end ALL chimpanzee experimentation. In the desert of New Mexico at the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF), these chimpanzees have been spared from further invasive experimentation for the past decade because of IDA, thanks in large part to your generous support in helping us keep the pressure on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – the government agency funding so much “research” on chimpanzees. Click on photo to see how you can help. Now, the NIH wants to ship the surviving chimps to a lab in San Antonio, where they will once again be subjected to the painful, daily horrors of medical experimentation, this time involving hepatitis C. Your donation to In Defense of Animals can protect these chimpanzees from harm – and help us end all experimentation on great apes like chimpanzees. If not for IDA, the world would never have known about Lennie or any of the other chimps. For five years, the NIH fought us in federal court, trying every trick in the book to deny us access to the chimpanzees’ medical records. Ultimately IDA’s watershed legal victory resulted in the court ordering the NIH to provide tens of thousands of pages of medical records for every chimpanzee at the APF, records documenting the physical and emotional torture inflicted on these chimpanzees for decades. IDA immediately shared these records with McClatchy News for its shocking exposé. But the McClatchy Special Report is just the tip of the iceberg... The writing on the wall is clear: we can’t stop now. And, we desperately need your donation today if we are to continue, and save the chimps in time. Because of public outcry about the plans to resume experiments on these chimpanzees, the NIH was forced to ask the National Academy of Sciences to convene a Committee that will determine if chimpanzees are “necessary” for experimentation. On June 8, 2011, two weeks after IDA blasted the pro-experimentation make-up of the Committee and the proposed Chair’s conflict of interest, the Chair stepped down. Though the Committee is still stacked, the new Chair – a bioethicist – has asked experimenters some hard questions. On August 11, 2011, IDA testified before the Committee that we had uncovered what we consider SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT committed by chimpanzee experimenters, with glaring discrepancies between the chimp medical records and multiple peer-reviewed papers. The United States is one of the last countries to experiment on chimpanzees. A decade ago, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, New Zealand and others began banning great ape experimentation. More follow suit each year. The McClatchy Special Report revealed that more modern, more humane, and far more effective methods have been developed. NIH claims it will ensure “humane and fair treatment” of the Alamogordo chimpanzees if they go back into “research,” just as they claim that ALL chimpanzees in labs are treated humanely. But its track record says different. A glimpse at the NIH’s track record: Lira, a chimp who died last year, plucked herself bald from the stress of horrifically invasive experiments. Lennie, the space chimp you read about, had a 540-page medical file detailing 40 years of spinal taps, biopsies, infection with HIV, and a drug called triparanol that had been removed from the market because it caused blindness. Rex, a 16-year-old chimp, dies with vomit in his mouth and windpipe. An NIH consultant reports that Rex’s history of repeated liver biopsies probably led to septicemia (bacteria in the blood). Seventy Alamogordo chimps, including Lira, Lennie and Rex, have already died – and untold hundreds in other labs. Even for those lucky enough to survive, the trauma never fully goes away. PLEASE...send your tax-deductible donation, as generous as you’re able, to In Defense of Animals now and together we will: Prevent the NIH from moving the chimpanzees at the APF back into experimentation and ensure these apes, who have suffered for so long, are retired to a special sanctuary where they can live out their lives in peace. Hire experts to scrutinize the tens of thousands of pages of chimpanzee medical records so we can submit yet more devastating documentation to the Committee that will be deciding the fate of ALL chimpanzees in experimentation. Educate Congress and the public as we fight to end chimpanzee experimentation forever. Please. Give to IDA today. Help save the Alamogordo chimps – indeed, all chimpanzees imprisoned in labs – and help us end chimpanzee experimentation forever. Thank you so very much. For the animals,     Elliot M. Katz, DVM Founder and President Emeritus, In Defense of Animals In Defense of Animals, located in San Rafael, Calif., is an international animal protection organization with more than 100,000 members and supporters dedicated to ending the abuse and exploitation of animals by protecting their rights and welfare. IDA's efforts include educational events, cruelty investigations, boycotts, grassroots activism, and hands-on rescue through our sanctuaries in Mississippi, Mumbai, India, and Cameroon, Africa. In Defense of Animals is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We welcome your feedback and appreciate your donations. Please join today! All donations to IDA are tax-deductible. In Defense of Animals 3010 Kerner, San Rafael, CA 94901 Tel. (415) 448-0048 Fax (415) 454-1031 idainfo@idausa.org To unsubscribe, or to change your email preferences, please click here.

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