Cruel and needless experiments are performed on chimpanzees like 4X0139 and this one because companies like Arrowhead continue to commission them

Thirty-five years ago, a female chimpanzee—identified only as “4X0139″—was intentionally infected with the hepatitis B virus by experimenters. She was then infected with HIV, hepatitis C, and other illnesses and has been imprisoned in a laboratory for use in traumatic experiments in the decades since.

Recently, in an experiment at the notoriousTexas Biomedical Research Institute, she was injected with an experimental hepatitis B drug and then underwent repeated painful biopsies, during which pieces of her liver were removed.

This experiment was commissioned by pharmaceutical company Arrowhead Research Corporation, even though a landmark report on the scientific validity of experiments on chimpanzees concluded that “most current biomedical research use of chimpanzees is not necessary,” including for hepatitis B research. Many drug companies—including Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Gilead Sciences, and…