Macaque pair hug and hold on
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Close up gang housed macaques used in viral studies, August 2000. Please acknowledge joint © Understanding Animal Research/Wellcome Images.
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Monkeys are occasionally used to test the safety of treatments such as vaccines, but special permission has to be granted by the Home Office for any research using non-human primates and they can only be used if the research cannot be carried out on any other animal. Dental research has relied heavily on monkeys because they have the same number and relative size of teeth as humans. Macaque monkey research, for example, enabled dental researchers to link a specific bacterium to periodontal diseases, gum conditions which affect up to 90% of the worldwide population and are the main cause of adult tooth loss. Brain research using monkeys has been important in developing treatments for neurological conditioons such as Parkinson's Disease.
