A trailblazing letter from eight members of Congress, including Central Florida Representatives Bill Posey and Darren Soto, calls on the National Institutes of Health to phase out animal experiments. The letter was sent to Acting Director Dr. Lawrence Tabak and urged a phase-out of costly and ineffective animal experiments, citing NIH’s own statistic that 95% of new drugs fail in human trials.
“The lack of a firm commitment to modernizing research puts the U.S. at risk of losing its role as the world leader in biomedical research and deflects funding from research that could address and alleviate some of the world’s most deadly diseases,” the letter stated.
The bipartisan proposal suggests that the agency do the following immediately: eliminate funding for animal experiments that we know fail to translate to humans; identify all other areas in which animal experiments consistently fail and end funding for them; and, prioritize funding for modern, human-relevant research.
NIH spent approximately $19.6 billion on animal studies last year—nearly half its annual budget—even as other countries are embracing humane research methods. The joint letter points out that although the European Parliament recently passed a resolution calling on the European Commission to create an action plan to end all experiments on animals, the U.S. has no such plan. The European Parliament’s move came after members reviewed PETA’s Research Modernization Deal.
Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican representing South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, and Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat representing California’s 33rd Congressional District, sent the bipartisan letter signed by Reps. Bill Posey, Joe Neguse, Dina Titus, Brendan Boyle, Darren Soto, and Jerry McNerney.
“PETA is grateful to these representatives for their critical leadership on this issue,” said PETA neuroscientist and Chief of Science Advancement and Outreach Dr. Katherine Roe. “NIH now has a clear message from Congress that if the U.S. wants to be a world leader in biomedical research and get the health advances Americans desperately need, it needs to move away from outdated models and embrace modern, human-relevant research methods. PETA scientists stand ready to assist with this transition.”
Learn more about PETA’s new deal to revamp laboratory research.
Yes! This is a smart, lifesaving (animals and humans) evolution of science that is badly needed. Trying to cure human diseases by experimenting on other species is as cruel as it is misleading.