Chimpanzee Management Program (ChiMP) and its Advisory Council, to be based in a national office, preferably in the office of the director of NIH or a suitable alternative that has the autonomy, infrastructure, and expertise to manage the program (figure 5.1).

• A single entity in a government agency (ChiMP) be assigned ownership, or lifetime care, with responsibility and authority for stewardship of this vital resource, which is to be supported by and used in partnership with other federal agencies.

This national program (designated the National Chimpanzee Resource, or NCR) consists of the ChiMP office, the ChiMP Advisory Council, and chimpanzees owned or supported by the government. ChiMP should be an autonomous body with sole responsibility and authority for coordinating the management of a US government-owned population of chimpanzees for use in biomedical research by any government agency or department, irrespective of whether an investigator is employed by the government, receives research funding from a governmental source, or represents private enterprise. Because most biomedical research with chimpanzees is supported by the NIH intramural and extramural programs, it is logical that ChiMP be housed at NIH to facilitate transfer of information between ChiMP and the intramural NIH institutes and centers and the extramural chimpanzee-using institutions. Although the office is proposed to be at NIH, it is intended that it be supported by a consortium of federal agencies that use chimpanzees in research (such as FDA, CDC, and DOD) and therefore not be subject solely to NIH operating and budgetary constraints.

Elsewhere we have recommended that scientific review of protocols in which chimpanzees are proposed to be used be conducted by the principal investigator's institution and approved by that institution's animal care and use committee (IACUC). It is therefore the intent that ChiMP not serve this function; rather, its goal should be to expedite and simplify the assignment of chimpanzees to IACUC-approved protocols. The ChiMP office would serve as a resource for information on government-sponsored chimpanzee studies and seek to avoid unnecessary duplication of research, maximize efficiency of use of the chimpanzees, and ensure the implementation of the best practices of animal care and careful attention to the welfare of the chimpanzees. Requests