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- <text id=89TT0240>
- <title>
- Jan. 23, 1989: American Notes:Texas
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Jan. 23, 1989 Barbara Bush:The Silver Fox
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 29
- American Notes
- TEXAS
- Pensions for Primates
- </hdr><body>
- <p> It seems like a sensational deal. After a mere two or three
- years of work, retire on a pension that will finance decades of
- carefree living. Such a bargain is in fact available -- but only
- to chimpanzees. Some 80 chimps are involved in a research
- project in San Antonio in which they are injected with the AIDS
- virus; they develop some clinical symptoms but not the full
- disease and have every prospect of living out their normal
- life-span of 40 to 60 years. They are, however, useless for
- further research, and it seems imprudent to release the
- AIDS-infected primates, who were born in captivity, into the
- wild. So the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research,
- which breeds the chimps and contracts them out to research
- organizations, charges customers $30,000 per animal to set up
- what amounts to a retirement plan to defray the cost of caring
- for the primates during their golden years. While subject to
- experiments, the chimps live alone in huts, but when their brief
- working lives are over, they are gathered into colonies of eight
- or ten in in-door-outdoor block houses that give them room to
- romp. Says foundation official Jorg Eichberg: "They lead a very
- normal life."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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