Deborah Blum, a science writer, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for the series of articles that have inspired this
book.
Review
"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
Oxford University Press Web Site, May, 2001
Summary
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.