Editorial: Primates in medical research: the plot thickens

Michael Balls

They claim it worked on monkeys but I wonder what the poor beasts would say about it if they could speak.

Two more reports on the use of non-human primates for experimental procedures in medical research, published in June 2006, but written from completely different perspectives, raise many causes for concern about both the ethical acceptability and the scientific validity of using our closest relatives in this way.