The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) have reported that in the future hardly any chimpanzees will be used for biomedical research, considering that their use is "not necessary" in most cases, thus accepting the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine ( IOM). In fact, they have announced that they will not fund any new research projects using chimpanzees .
According to the recommendations issued by the IOM in December 2001 and based on consultation with independent experts, most of the scientific trials reviewed with chimpanzees were not essential and should be strictly limited. NIH will also review all ongoing research using chimpanzees, which is the minority. Of the 94,000 research projects funded in 2011 by the institutes, only 53 were carried out with this type of primates.
The United States is the only industrialized country currently using primates for scientific research , especially in studies related to hepatitis C, AIDS, and malaria. The European Union (EU) formally banned the use of monkeys in laboratories in 2010, following the example of Japan, Australia and other countries.
Experts estimate, however, that in certain domains it could still be essential to resort to chimpanzees, as is the case in comparing the genomes of these apes and humans, or in emerging infectious diseases.
