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Balancing Animal Welfare And Medical Advances

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Approximately a thousand chimpanzees are held in U.S. laboratories for experiments. This week the federal government announced a proposal to list captive chimpanzees as endangered, a move that would increase protections for them.  Today on River To River - two opposing views over whether this is a good idea and how it might affect advances in the field of medicine.

In the first half hour, Ben Kieffer speaks with Kathleen Conlee of The Humane Society. She is in favor of the reclassification, which would require permits for any future medical research involving chimps. Then, in the second half hour, Dr. William Talman Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at UI tells Ben why he thinks this is a bad idea, and why chimps are still needed for medical research.

Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River