THE MONKEY WARS

New York, NY, U.S.A.: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1994. First Edition, First Printing 1st Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. 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 cases of unnecessarily callous treatment of animals by researchers. It is a complex issue, made more difficult by the often combative stance of both researchers and animal activists. In THE MONKEY WARS, Deborah Blum gives a human face to this often caustic debate--an all-but-human face to the subjects of the struggle, the chimpanzees and monkeys themselves. Blum criss-crosses America to show us firsthand the issues and personalities involved. She offers a wide-ranging, informative look at animal 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. Along the way, Blum offers us insights into the many side-issues involved: scientists who lose funding because they support animal rights; the intense battle, fought by both sides, to win over school kids; the danger of transplanting animal organs into humans (it could possibly unleash a deadly, highly infectious disease), and the concerns over the dwindling monkey populations. Deborah Blum won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for the series of articles that inspired this book. Fine, in fine, mylar-protected dust jacket. NF21