Coulston keeps Air Force chimp contract
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1994:
The U.S. Air Force has renewed
the Coulston Foundation’s contract to man-
age the 540-member chimpanzee colony at
Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
The colony, the world’s largest, includes
140 chimps left over or descended from those
used in lieu of human astronauts during the
early days of NASA. The rest belong to
Coulston, a biomedical research suppler.
Founder Frederick Coulston, 79, reportedly
wants to expand the use of chimps, now
used mainly in AIDS and hepatitis research,
into testing treatments for conditions of age.
According to Boston Globe
reporter Scott Allen, “Coulston or his associ-
ates have removed chimps’ gall bladders to
study how the animals produce bile, and
Coulston believes that chimps are often the
best model for studying the effects of toxic
chemicals on humans. And Coulston pio-
neered the use of lower primates such as
monkeys in tests in which chemicals are
sprayed into open eyes, a practice he still
supports. Sources close to the company say
his researchers tested oven cleaner on mon-
keys’ eyes last year, despite initial objec-
tions from the in-house panel that reviews
research ethics.”
The USDA has repeatedly cited
Coulston for violating Animal Welfare Act
care standards––and on Halloween 1993,
three Coulston chimps baked to death when a
heater malfunctioned. The USAF favors
Coulston over two different plans to set up a
chimp retirement colony because the
Coulston operation pays for itself, whereas
the retirement colonies would cost the USAF
$2 million a year to maintain. One of the
alternate plans is advanced by Peter Singer
and Jane Goodall of The Great Ape Project;
the other by Jan Moor-Jankowski, of the
New York University Medical Center.
