Progress! Sustained PETA pressure has helped produce new initiatives from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) aimed at reducing the number of animals used in experiments, furthering a welcome shift toward the state-of-the-art, non-animal science that PETA has advocated for years.

NIH has just announced five new programs, including a substantial $88 million investment in animal-free research infrastructure projects, an NIH laboratory that will integrate state-of-the-art non-animal technologies to create reproducible human biological systems for experiments, and steps toward creating an annual report of animals used in NIH-funded experiments, among other proposals.

The announcement follows recent actions by the Trump administration to put taxpayer funds into non-animal research. Among the milestones toward reducing animal use listed by the Department of Health and Human Services is the grotesque experiments of Margaret Livingston, a PETA campaign target, who took infant monkeys from their mothers and tormented them in various ways, including sewing their eyelids shut. Following PETA’s exposé, protests, and other actions, NIH cut Livingston’s funding.

PETA thanks Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for taking concrete steps to replace experiments on animals with superior, human-based science. The message to scientists is clear: The future lies in cutting-edge, human-relevant, animal-free research. Get on board.

But there is so much more to do.

While PETA applauds these steps, real progress will require more. PETA urges HHS to accelerate the closure of the National Primate Research Centers, honor its commitment to end federal funding for experiments on dogs, and stop funding experiments on animals in the U.S. and overseas. NIH needs to get out of the animal testing business altogether.

NIH should also move swiftly toward creating an annual census of animals tormented in NIH-funded laboratories by immediately requiring institutions to report the total number of animals used, skipping a lengthy review.  

What You Can Do

Please urge NIH to shut down the national primate research centers. Sixty years of failed experiments on tens of thousands of dead monkeys must end now.

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