Transcript of Dateline NBC Segment on Air Force Chimpanzees

They're pioneers of our space program who are about to be sold by the government, triggering a fight over their future. Should they be used for the latest medical experiments or spend their last days in retirement?

AS SENATOR JOHN GLENN prepares to make aeronautical history as both the first and oldest astronaut to orbit in space, take a moment to reflect on the American space travelers who paved his flight path. They're senior citizens too, and they may be looking for a place to retire.

It may have been a giant step for mankind, but chimpanzees cleared the way for the human astronauts whose names we've all come to associate with United States space travel. History in the making! The year was 1961. The site - Cape Canaveral, where an aeronautical trailblazer named Ham was shot into space.

Most of the original astro-chimps have passed away, but today the destiny of the 33 surviving chimpanzees and their 110 descendants hangs in the balance. No longer useful to the space program, the Air Force is holding an open bid for the chimps, triggering a national debate over where and how they should spend the rest of their lives.

At least two sides are battling for their ownership. The man with a good shot at getting them because his facility is already up and running is 83-year-old Dr. Frederick Coulston. He has had a temporary lease on the chimps for the past five years at Holloman Air Force Base in the New Mexico desert. It is the largest captive chimpanzee colony in the world. In addition to the space chimps, more than 1,000 other primates live there, undergoing biomedical experimentation. He has used primates for decades to help develop the vaccine for Hepatitis B, and he is currently using them in HIV studies. He says chimps have contributed significantly to the study of human illness. "We have made great advances with these animals, from the space program to vaccines and drugs," he says. Coulston uses the chimps for most of the research because they are so similar to humans.

'We have made great advances with these animals, from the space program to vaccines and drugs.'
- DR. FREDERICK COULSTON

In fact, chimpanzees share 98.5 percent of human DNA, making this primate more like us than any living creature. That's why Dr. Coulston says he needs these chimps in the future to study human aging.

"How does a chimp differ from man as he ages?" asks Coulston. "Is the chimp the same as man as he ages?"

Coulston Critics Target Coulston Foundation

But is he really the best person to care for these veterans of the United States space program? Critics point to how Dr. Coulston has treated his primates in everything from pharmaceutical to household chemical and cosmetic testing, which has meant that some animals have been injected with benzene, sprayed in the eyes with cleaning solutions, and infused with arsenic. Coulston supporters say this research is critical to human health and safety. Still, some former employees claim the conditions at the lab are deplorable. In 1996, after three chimps literally roasted to death when a thermostat malfunctioned and several primates were found dying of thirst, the Coulston Foundation was fined $40,000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Frederick Coulston never admitted wrongdoing, but agreed to cease and desist violations of the Animal Welfare Act and to use half the fine to improve housing conditions.

Critics believe that based on some of the findings of the USDA, the chimps are not being treated like they should be. Coulston says the conditions are acceptable.

"The findings are the same as they would find in any facility in the United States," he says. "And we do the best we can. My relations with the USDA are excellent." But just three months ago, the USDA filed formal charges against the Coulston Foundation again for 24 more violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including two that allegedly resulted in animal deaths. The foundation has denied the charges, saying it has complied with all relevant Animal Welfare Act standards. Yet over the years when former employees tried to speak out, they say they were rebuffed. Eleven veterinarians have quit the foundation since Dr. Coulston took over in 1994.

Allegation of Mistreatment

Dr. Samantha Struthers is an animal behaviorist who worked at the Coulston foundation for three years. She says she quit her job last year. But she felt it was time people knew the truth about what was happening to some of the chimps behind the gates of Coulston's lab.

'Those chimps deserve the right to have a better life'
- DR. SAMANTHA STRUTHERS, Animal behaviorist

"Those chimps deserve the right to have a better life," she says. "Chimpanzees, when they suffer from a deprived or non-enriched environment, often bite or scratch themselves or pull the skin off their arms or heads. It means that they may sit in the corner and rock and rock and rock or bang their heads on the walls."

Dr. Struthers says self-mutilation took place primarily in socially isolated lab settings like the restricted areas of the foundation's building where cameras from "Dateline" were not permitted to go. It's where she says the oldest Air Force chimps were often kept alone in vermin-infested cages - Building 1264.

"I would often have cockroaches, two-inch, three-inch-long cockroaches just crawl right over my feet, scuttle in and out of the cages," she says.

Coulston denies any charges of primate self-mutilation and says he has his pest problem under control. Insects, he says, come with the territory. "We're sitting in the middle of a desert for God's sake," he says. "It's full of bugs that want to come inside." Some former employees say there was an environment of fear and intimidation and that it was Coulston's way or the highway.

"No, it wasn't my way. I don't operate that way," Coulston says.

Dr. Coulston suggests that perhaps some former employees simply couldn't adhere to his standard of care. "Maybe these people didn't fit any longer after I took over," he says.

"The primary concern at the Coulston Foundation was not the welfare of the chimps," says Struthers, "but rather the research."

A Chimp Retirement Home?

So Struthers, once an ardent believer in animal research, decided to leave the lab and support a group that also wants control of the chimps - led by world-famous primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall. "I think that they ought to be retired in some kind of situation where they can have a decent environment," says Goodall. With breakthrough techniques like in-vitro human cell testing reducing the need for chimpanzees in the study of human illness, Goodall wonders, "Should we be using our closest living relatives for medical research?"

Her lifelong work with primates has shown there is not only a genetic bond between chimp and human, but that watching chimpanzee behavior is virtually like looking in the mirror.

"The non-verbal communication," says Goodall, "kissing, embracing, holding hands, patting on the back, swaggering, shaking the fists and doing these things in the same context that we do them."

Dr. Roger Fouts, a primatologist and author of the book, "Next of Kin," is working with Goodall to free the chimps, now on loan to Coulston.

"We're really talking about a sibling species here," he says. Fouts has spent the last 30 years teaching American sign language to chimpanzees, among them Washoe, one of the original Air Force chimps. She was raised free of biomedical testing, with lots of room to roam, unlike the rest of the space chimps who've remained at Holloman for almost 40 years in cages subject to medical experimentation.

"This is deprivation for them," says Fouts. "And they've never robbed a bank, they've never stolen a car. And yet they're facing life imprisonment without possibility of parole. We don't do that to axe murderers even."

His idea is to build an American sanctuary for the space chimps and their descendants.

He would like this sanctuary to be one acre per chimp and to have psychologists on hand for chimps that have been damaged from staying in cages.

"I know it sounds like a great deal," says Fouts, "but it would cost less to care for these sanctuary chimps than it does chimps in biomedical facilities right now in the five-by-five cages."

$13 Million for Chimpanzees?

In fact, it is estimated that such a facility would cost about $13 million for the life span of the space chimps - some of whom could live another 50 years. Fouts and Goodall have already raised $1.3 million toward that goal.

Meanwhile, the Air Force will soon decide if the chimps will stay with Dr. Coulston or retire to a sanctuary. "Why let them retire? I won't retire," says Coulston. "Most people I know, even if they retire from a job, continue to do something good. You aren't going to let these chimps just [go] out there and suffer in a sanctuary. This is their home."

So the battle for the Air Force chimps presses on, with one side holding fast to a belief that the chimpanzee is the answer to the mysteries lurking inside the human body. "I'd rather be compassionate to man," says Coulston, "and use these animals in a wise and compassionate way to learn how to treat human diseases - make people live better, longer."

The other side is making certain these aging space veterans are not forgotten. "It's not something I'm going to give up on," says Fouts. "You can't afford to walk away and turn your back on your friends."

The Air Force will make its final decision by the end of the summer.

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