If you need a realistic model of a human for (say), preclinical or toxicology studies, chimps are almost never used. Rhesus monkeys are. Dogs, sometimes, or pigs. Ferrets work pretty well for respiratory stuff. Models are sometimes picked based on genetic similarity, but functional or anatomical similarity also guide the choice. Pig hearts are a go-to model for cardiac stuff, even though a primate heart is obviously closer.
Very occasionally, people will study chimps qua chimps. This is indeed because they're close to humans, but it's not usually aimed at improving human health. Moreover, this was never particularly popular and is now incredibly rare. Primates account for like 1-2% of vertebrates used in biomedical research; chimps can't be more than a tiny fraction of that.
If you said "software is written in assembler because it's close to the machine", I think most people would agree that it could be, but also that it is, in practice, not. That's exactly how I feel about this. Chimps could be used for biomedical research--and for that reason--but in practice, they're not.
If you need a realistic model of a human for (say), preclinical or toxicology studies, chimps are almost never used. Rhesus monkeys are. Dogs, sometimes, or pigs. Ferrets work pretty well for respiratory stuff. Models are sometimes picked based on genetic similarity, but functional or anatomical similarity also guide the choice. Pig hearts are a go-to model for cardiac stuff, even though a primate heart is obviously closer.
Very occasionally, people will study chimps qua chimps. This is indeed because they're close to humans, but it's not usually aimed at improving human health. Moreover, this was never particularly popular and is now incredibly rare. Primates account for like 1-2% of vertebrates used in biomedical research; chimps can't be more than a tiny fraction of that.
If you said "software is written in assembler because it's close to the machine", I think most people would agree that it could be, but also that it is, in practice, not. That's exactly how I feel about this. Chimps could be used for biomedical research--and for that reason--but in practice, they're not.