The Monkey Wars [Hardcover]

Deborah Blum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0195094123 | ISBN-13: 978-0195094121 | Edition: 1ST

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--Loulis, Tatu, Mojha, Dar, and the most famous, Washoe--and watch the flicker of their fingers as they talk to each other, to themselves, and to stuffed animals (which Fouts sees as a clear sign of intelligence and even more--imagination). Blum introduces us to Alex Pacheco, a founder of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, and to his bitter enemy, Peter Gerone, head of the federal primate center at Tulane and an outspoken critic of animal rights activists, who wants people to think about the trade-off at its most fundamental level--human life versus animal life. 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. Along the way, Blum offers us insights into the many side-issues involved: scientists (like Roger Fouts) who lose funding because they support animal rights, the intense battle to win over school kids fought by both sides, and the danger of transplanting animal organs into humans (it could possibly unleash a deadly, highly infectious disease).
"As it stands now," Blum concludes, "the research community and its activist critics are like two different nations, nations locked in a long, bitter, seemingly intractable political standoff.... But if you listen hard, there really are people on both sides willing to accept and work within the complex middle. When they can be freely heard, then we will have progressed to another place, beyond this time of hostilities." In The Monkey Wars, Deborah Blum gives these people their voice.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Scientists who use monkeys and other animals in biomedical research face mounting opposition from animal-rights advocates. Basing this detailed report largely on interviews, Blum, a journalist at the Sacramento Bee in California who won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles that inspired this middle-of-the-road book, accuses both sides of caricaturing their opponents as fanatics. Striving for evenhandedness, she seeks compromise and negotiation, perhaps best exemplified by Jan Moor-Jankowski. Director of the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Sterling Forest, N.Y., Moor-Jankowski listens to animal-rights activists and incorporates some of their criticisms into his methodology. We also meet Christine Stevens of the Washington, D.C.-based Animal Welfare Institute; outspoken Alex Pacheco of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; and Peter Gerone, crusader for animal research and director of Tulane's Primate Research Center. Blum credits the animal-rights movement with holding researchers to a standard of compassion and changing the way scientists think about the use of animals.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The use of animals in biomedical research has long been controversial. We want to reap the benefits of medical knowledge that can only be gained through research, but we don't like to think of animals being made to suffer. Blum, a California journalist who won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for the series of articles that inspired this book, does a good job of presenting both sides of the issue in this discussion of primate research. She respects the value of scientific research while sympathizing with those concerned with the welfare of the animals. Traveling to primate research facilities across the country, Blum introduces us to the best-known primate researchers and their projects. She shows that primates are amazingly similar to humans in their capacity to learn, reason, and form relationships. Recognizing that animal research is a complex issue, Blum allows readers to draw their own conclusions. This thought-provoking work is recommended for animal rights and animal research collections.
Deborah Emerson, Monroe Community Coll. Lib., Rochester, N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1ST edition (October 13, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195094123
• ISBN-13: 978-0195094121
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,072,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Deborah Blum has always considered herself a southerner, although she has no real Southern accent and was born in Illinois (Urbana, 1954). Still, her parents moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana when she was two, and to Athens, Georgia, when she was twelve. And she has always believed that the Southern culture of story-telling had a real influence on the way she uses narrative in writing about science.
After high school, Blum received a journalism degree from the University of Georgia in 1976, with a double minor in anthropology and political science. She worked for two newspapers in Georgia and one in Florida (St. Petersburg Times) before deciding to become a science writer and going to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. A University of Wisconsin fellow, she received her degree in 1982 and moved to California to work for McClatchy newspapers, first in Fresno and then in Sacramento. During her 13 years, at The Sacramento Bee, she won numerous awards for her work, culminating in the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in beat reporting for a series investigating ethical issues in primate research.
The series became her first book, The Monkey Wars (Oxford, 1994), which was named a Library Journal Best Sci-Tech book of the year. Three years later, she published Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences Between Men and Women (Viking, 1997), which was named a New York Times Notable Book. Her 2002 book, Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection, (Perseus Books) was a finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She followed that with Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death (Penguin Press, 2006). Her latest book, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, will be published in February 2010.
Blum is also the co-editor of a widely used guide to science writing, A Field Guide for Science Writers (Oxford, 2006). She is currently the Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she teaches science journalism, creative-non-fiction, magazine writing and investigative reporting. A past-president of the National Association of Science Writers, she currently serves as the North American board member to the World Federation of Science Journalists. She also sits on the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing and on the board of trustees for the Society for Society and the Public.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a generally even-handed treatment, June 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Monkey Wars (Paperback)

Overall, an excellent book. I couldn't put it down once I started reading it. My only complaint is that the author might a bit too uncritically accept vivisectors' claims about the human payoffs of their research. Near the end she does briefly discuss some of the failures of animal research and the cost that has been paid in terms of human suffering and death, but much of her earlier discussion is not informated by the latter.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars well-balanced and makes an important statement, April 24, 2002

By 

rackronnieroff "rackronnieroff" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Monkey Wars (Hardcover)

Whatever side of the vivisection debate you are on, this book is worth reading and paying attention to. "The Monkey Wars" calls attention to the need for discussion and understanding between researchers and animal-rights activists - something that is rarely happening. Intolerance, she shows, is leading to much suffering - both human and animal - and it is rife among both communities.

The idea that scientists who experiment on animals are all foaming-at-the-mouth maniacs, cackling and eager to cause suffering with their array of sharp instruments may occasionally be nearly true (see the sections on Harry Harlow). But Blum's book says that the majority of vivisectionists are dedicated to working for the good of people - at the cost of other animals (in this case, non-human primates). They believe this is fully acceptable - humans take priority and we must do what we can to help our own. Here lies the real debate - what gives us the right to inflict this suffering on these animals for the 'good' of mankind? What makes it acceptable? And how much good does it really do us, anyway?

Animal rights activists generally think it's NOT accaptable, and many doubt that much of it has any merit after all (see the chapter on baboon-human organ transplants). They (we) have a horrible reputation amongst researchers, so much so that at the first mention of 'animal rights' causes many of these people to close their ears and eyes and hum a silly tune until it's all over. While there HAVE been cases of pointless destruction and horrible threats to researchers in 'defense' of lab animals, the majority of animal activists are peaceful, reasonable people who want to ease suffering - including that of humans - not cause more.

Through a series of articles about and interviews with a whole spectrum of people involved, Blum shows us both sides of this sometimes hopeless 'debate' - and she does show us some hope as well. There are people on either side of the fence willing to listen and work with those who may not see things in exactly the same light. What's important, "The Monkey Wars" shows, is that we all be willing to listen to and consider others' arguments before making assumptions about the intentions of 'the other side'. This may not solve the entire debate and wipe out all suffering on earth - but it's a step in the right direction.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Communication is Key for the Monkey, June 17, 2000

By 

Karen Dawn "DawnWatch.com" (Pacific Palisades, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Monkey Wars (Paperback)

This book is an invaluable learning tool and reference source for anyone interested in helping primates used in research,or hoping to eventually eliminate their use. Blum makes it clear that not all primate researchers are monsters (though some are!) and that vilification of, rather than communicaton with "the other side" can hinder progress towards a kinder medical world.

I write from an animal advocacy perspective. I believe, however, that Blum makes a similar point to those who support research - she helps to dispel the myth that all animal advocates are unreasonable fanatics.

Yes, her book was hard to read in one or two places; I found the descriptions of repetitive, superfluous, studies on infant abuse particularly upsetting. But they are important for animal advocates to know about. For the most part, however, The Monkey Wars read like a fascinating scientific novel. I couldn't put it down.