[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 11] [Senate] [Pages 15058-15059] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS By Ms. CANTWELL (for herself, Ms. Collins, and Mr. Sanders): S. 3694. A bill to prohibit the conducting of invasive research on great apes, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to end the use of Great Apes in invasive research and urge my Senate colleagues to support the Great Ape Protection Act. The Great Ape Protection Act would prohibit invasive research on all Great Apes, including chimpanzees--the only Great Ape used in invasive research today. The bill would require the retirement of 500 federally- owned chimpanzees to appropriate sanctuaries. Today about 1,000 chimpanzees--half of them federally owned--languish at great taxpayer expense in 6 research laboratories across the nation. These chimpanzees are being held or used for invasive biomedical research, research that may cause death, bodily injury, pain, distress, fear, and trauma. Invasive research practices include techniques such as injecting a chimpanzee with a drug that would be detrimental to its health, infecting a chimp with a disease, cutting a chimp or removing body parts, and isolation or social deprivation. [[Page 15059]] The vast majority of these animals--between 80 and 90 percent--aren't actually being used in research, but instead are warehoused, simply wasting away in these facilities. For example, approximately half of the government-owned chimpanzees have been held for the past 9 years in a facility in New Mexico where no research is being conducted. Some chimpanzees have been in labs for more than 50 years, confined in steel cages for most of their lives and enduring sometimes painful and distressing experimental procedures. The fact that the vast majority of federally-owned chimpanzees are not being used in active research, but instead are warehoused in labs at the taxpayer expense, underlines the futility of their continued confinement. Chimpanzees are poor research models for human illness, and they have been of limited use in the study of human disease. Despite how similar they are to us, significant differences in their immunology and disease progression make them ineffective models for human diseases like HIV, cancer and heart disease research. For example, research published in the Journal of Medical Primatology in 2009 on Hepatitis C indicates that use of chimpanzees has produced poor results. And the National Center for Research Resources under the National Institutes of Health has prohibited breeding of government- owned and supported chimpanzees for research. Significant genetic and physiological differences between nonhuman Great Apes and humans also make chimpanzees a poor research model for human diseases. We have spent millions of dollars over several decades on chimpanzee-based HIV and Hepatitis C research with no resulting vaccines for those diseases. Chimpanzees largely failed as a model for HIV because the virus does not cause illness in chimpanzees as it does to humans. These are very social, highly intelligent animals--with the ability, for example, to learn American Sign Language. Their intelligence and ability to experience emotions so similar to humans underscore how chimpanzees suffer intensely under laboratory conditions. Their psychological suffering in laboratories produces human-like symptoms of stress, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder after decades of living in isolation in small cages. Given their social nature and capacity for suffering and boredom due to lack of stimulation, the 500 privately-owned chimpanzees and 500 federally-owned chimpanzees being held in research laboratories would be significantly better off in sanctuaries. And by doing so we would save more than $170 million taxpayer dollars throughout the chimpanzees' lifetimes. This is because the cost of caring for a chimpanzee in a sanctuary is a fraction of the cost of their housing and maintenance in a laboratory. And many in the scientific community believe this money could be allocated to more effective research. In my home State of Washington, I am proud that we have Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. Chimpanzee-Sanctuary Northwest provides sustainable sanctuary for seven chimpanzees retired in 2008 from decades in research facilities. The United States is currently behind the rest of the world in outlawing this sad practice. Australia, Austria, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have all banned or severely limited experiments on Great Apes. And several other countries and the European Union are considering similar bans as well. We are the only country--besides Gabon in West Africa--that is still holding or using chimpanzees for invasive research. It's past time for the United States to catch up with the rest of the world by ending this antiquated use of this endangered species. We are lagging behind in action, but the desire to end invasive research on Great Apes has been present for more than a decade. In 1997, the National Research Council concluded that there should be a moratorium on further chimpanzee breeding. And the National Institutes of Health, NIH, has already announced an end to funding for the breeding of federally-owned and supported chimpanzees for research, but this should be codified. Government needs to take action to make invasive research on chimpanzees illegal. That is why today I am introducing the Bipartisan Great Ape Protection Act, along with my colleagues Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The Great Ape Protection Act is a common-sense policy reform to protect our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom from physical and psychological harm, and to help reduce government spending and our federal deficit. Specifically, this bill will phase out the use of chimpanzees in invasive research over a three-year period, require permanent retirement to suitable sanctuaries for the 500 federally-owned chimpanzees currently being warehoused in research laboratories, and codifies the current administrative ban on breeding of Government-owned and supported chimpanzees. We have been delaying this action for too long. It is time to get this done and end this type of harmful research and end this wasteful Government spending. ______ By Mr. CASEY: S. 3696. A bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act with regard to certain exemptions under that Act for direct care workers and to improve the systems for the collection and reporting of data relating to the direct care workforce, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Direct Care Workforce Empowerment Act. Next year the baby boom generation will start turning 65 and by 2030, all 78 million will have reached that age. We must ensure this generation that fought in our wars, worked in our factories, taught our children and who gave us life and love are cared for. This will require an investment in the health care workforce that was begun under health care reform and must continue into the coming decades. It is the direct care worker that provides most of this care to our loved ones. Unfortunately, they are often not given the respect they deserve for the work they do. Direct care workers help more than 250,000 Pennsylvanians and their families every day. This is also one of the fastest growing professions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is now our responsibility to make sure these jobs, while often personally rewarding, provide opportunity for advancement and economic stability for the workers. This bill will do three key things. The bill will ensure that home care workers receive the Federal minimum wage and overtime protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act; improve Federal and State data collection and oversight with respect to the direct care workforce; and establish a grant program to help states improve direct care worker recruitment, retention, and training. I hope my colleagues join me in supporting this important legislation. ____________________