After watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes this afternoon (which was great, by the way), the first thing I said when coming out of the theater was, “Isn’t medical testing on primates illegal?” Rise of the Planet of the Apes focuses on the premise that an Alzheimer’s drug is tested on chimps, which increases brain functions and ends up making the chimps super smart – even smarter than humans.
So, back to my question. I saw Project X as a kid; we’ve all realized already that testing on primates is unethical and we’ve stopped, right?
Well, some countries in Europe have made it illegal. But the U.S. is the country that by far uses the most non-human primates in (no surprise here) medical testing. If you’d like to sign a petition against primate testing you can go here to The Real Planet of the Apes.
What does Google have to do with it?
My concern is that when I tried to find this information, the “sponsored” pages that showed up at the top of the page were all medical research companies that supply chimpanzees for testing! The only information I could find with petitions or organizations to stop chimpanzee testing were in Europe. The only information I could find AGAINST primate testing were European websites.
Remember that most people don’t do the extra work to refine search options, or look at the second page of results. I’m not a conspiracy theorist; I believe people do things for their own interests. Pharmaceutical companies can pay, just like BP did, to control what results pop up for searches on animal testing, to try to prevent people from getting accurate information and working to stop this practice.
I’m going to remember this from now on while searching the internet – it’s not just a random and objective search you’re doing. Ah, the freedom of information in our modern age!
Tags: animal testing, animals, apes, film, medical, movie, planet of the apes, primates Posted by