The controversy over the use of primates in research admits of no easy answers. We have all benefited from the medical discoveries of primate research--vaccines for polio, rubella, and hepatitis B are just a few. But we have also learned more in recent years about how intelligent apes and monkeys really are: they can speak to us with sign language, they can even play video games (and are as obsessed with the games as any human teenager). And activists have also uncovered widespread and unnecessarily callous treatment of animals by researchers (in 1982, a Silver Spring lab was charged with 17 counts of animal cruelty). It is a complex issue, made more difficult by the combative stance of both researchers and animal activists.
In The Monkey Wars, Deborah Blum gives a human face to this often caustic debate--and an all-but-human face to the subjects of the struggle, the chimpanzees and monkeys themselves. Blum criss-crosses America to show us first hand the issues and personalities involved. She offers a wide-ranging, informative look at animal rights activists, now numbering some twelve million, from the moderate Animal Welfare Institute to the highly radical Animal Liberation Front (a group destructive enough to be placed on the FBI's terrorist list). And she interviews a wide variety of researchers, many forced to conduct their work protected by barbed wire and alarm systems, men and women for whom death threats and hate mail are common. She takes us to Roger Fouts's research center in Ellensburg, Washington, where we meet five chimpanzees trained in human sign language, and we visit LEMSIP, a research facility in New York State that has no barbed wire, no alarms--and no protesters chanting outside--because its director, Jan Moor-Jankowski, listens to activists with respect and treats his animals humanely. And along the way, Blum offers us insights into the many side-issues involved: the intense battle to win over school kids fought by both sides, and the danger of transplanting animal organs into humans.
"As it stands now," Blum concludes, "the research community and its activist critics are like two different nations, nations locked in a long, bitter, seemingly intractable political standoff....But if you listen hard, there really are people on both sides willing to accept and work within the complex middle. When they can be freely heard, then we will have progressed to another place, beyond this time of hostilities." In The Monkey Wars, Deborah Blum gives these people their voice.
Industry Reviews
"A candid look at the issues from both sides. No comparable book on this topic exists."--Los Angeles Times
"A fascinating, well-researched and timely book that will have a major impact."--George B. Schaller, The Wildlife Conservation Society
"[Blum] writes in a straight-forward, informal style, never raising her own voice, and she is scrupulously fair about presenting all sides."--The New York Times Book Review
"Blum forces us to look at the issues head on....By presenting not only the extremes but also the saner voices of responsible scientists, Blum allows us to believe that in the matter of primate experimentation, war is not inevitable."--American Scientist
"Deborah Blum's book, The Monkey Wars, probes deeply into what it means to be alive, to be human, to be both sensitive and responsible to conflicting interests."--Contemporary Psychology
"Blum...takes a truly balanced look at the conflict between members of the animal advocacy movement and scientists who use research animals....With extensive footnotes and index, the book tells the fascinating and sometimes repulsive story of how the battles lines can be drawn....It provides a wonderful model of critical thinking--how to reason out a complex dilemma--and would be an ideal springboard for classroom discussion and writing."--KLIATT
"The author is a terrific reporter....And she is scrupulously fair."--New York Times Book Review New & Noteworthy Paperbacks, April 21, 1996
"[A]n exceptionally sensitive, cogent, and balanced exploration of the reality beyond the controversy over using primates in research."--Medical Humanities Review, Volume 9, Number 2
"Deborah Blum has written a fascinating and very lucid account of the conflicts--both social and psychological--that permeate the keeping and use of monkeys and apes in American laboratories. All the human actors who currently participate in the Monkey Wars should pay special heed to her concluding plea for more listening and understanding and less categorization and vilification."--Andrew N. Rowan, Director, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine
"[A] deeply thought-provoking report from the war zone....firlmy grounded in exhaustive reporting....whatever your current beliefs may be, The Monkey Wars will make you see the whole question of animal research--and much that has been done in the name of science--quite differently." --Business Week
"A candid look at the issues from both sides. No comparable book on this topic exists....The Monkey Wars....argues that the time has come to close our ears to the yelling proponents of the most extreme positions and tune in to voices of reason and moderation."--Frans B.M. De Waal, Los Angeles Times
"An important book in the furthering of public inquiry into the ethical and scientific issues concerning primate experimentation."--Judith Reitman, author of Stolen for Profit
"A brilliant and unblinking look at one of the most disturbing issues of the 1990s, penned by one of the nation's most distinguished science journalists."--Keay Davidson, Science Writer, San Francisco Examiner, and co-author of Wrinkles in Time
"A fascinating, well-researched and timely book that will have a major impact."--George B. Schaller, The Wildlife Conservation Society
"A shockingly candid look at the moral and scientific debate over primate experiments and the lengths to which many in the research industry are willing to go to suppress and penalize public inquiry."--Judith Reitman, author of Stolen for Profit
"An in-the-trenches look at the raging battle over the use of primates in scientific research."--Rotunda, published by the American Museum of Natural History
"A penetrating look at the bitter controversy between animal rights activists and research scientists over the use of monkeys and chimpanzees in medical research....Blum...brings the issues into sharp, disturbing focus."--Kirkus Reviews
"[A] thought-provoking work."--Library Journal
"[Blum] writes in a straight-forward, informal style, never raising her own voice, and she is scrupulously fair about presenting all sides."--The New York Times Book Review
For academic/medical lists, as per J. Bossert: "Here, for a change, is a refreshing, informative, and interesting book about animal research....The author performed an extraordinary amount of on-site, face-to-face research. She has been fair and objective, and she has addressed the major sides of the amimal research controversy....It goes a long way in helping the reader make sense of the issues and empathize with those central to the controversy....There is no
final answer in this book, nor is one expected. The animal rights controversy is largely about values and people whose values differ significantly. The Monkey Wars is an excellent introduction to the
controversy and is worth every minute." --Michael T. McGuire, MD, Journal of the American Medical Association
"By presenting not only the extremes but also the saner voices of responsible scientists, Blum allows us to believe that in the matter of primate experimentation, war is not inevitable." --American Scientist
"Ms. Blum presents complex specialist knowledge in a comprehensible form with considerable success." --Laboratory Animals
"Deborah Blum has written an important book....In a very well-balanced presentation, she provides detailed documentation of both caring and extremist scientists, and both caring and extremist activists....Monkey Wars explores, with the same fine balance, the benefits and possible complications for cross-species experiments in a carefully documented and well-thought out discussion."--Journal of the American College of Toxicology
"...an exceptionally sensitive, cogent, and balanced exploration of the reality beyond the controversy over using primates in research..."
"A lucid account of the problems with using primates in research. The style is that of a good reporter's: interviews woven into background material that allow the arguments for and against to be heard and judged."--New Scientist
