The Hill News

We might seem like an unlikely couple: one of us is a Hollywood actress who plays a vampire on True Blood, the other a physician who served as the medical director of immunization practices in the vaccine division of GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals. But a common desire brings us together: improving human health and ending cruel chimpanzee experiments by passing the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act of 2012.
 
We know that it’s a critical moment for this bill. The legislation currently has more than 175 congressional co-sponsors who want to see it pass this year for scientific, financial and ethical reasons.
 
The Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act will help the United States move toward more effective treatments for a laundry list of human diseases. It will save more than $330 million in taxpayer dollars over the next decade. And it will help the nearly 1,000 chimpanzees currently suffering in U.S. laboratories.

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