EPA Plans To Ban Animal Testing; FDA To Remove Animal Testing Requirements For Some Drugs

The EPA and FDA both announced plans to phase out animal testing in favor of alternatives. EPA Commissioner Lee Zeldin announced that the agency would reinstate the directive signed during the first Trump administration. At that time, the EPA committed to reducing animal testing by 30% before 2025, but the Biden administration effectively halted those deadlines.

The EPA explicitly tests the toxicity of chemicals and pesticides on animals to evaluate how they will affect humans. Animals were supposed to be given retirement plans under the directive, but the Washington Times reported in 2023 that the EPA euthanized a rabbit because it would be too burdensome to provide the rabbit with the socialization it needs to be happy.

The HighWire reported in February about the House Oversight Committee hearing in which they discussed “barbaric” taxpayer-funded animal experiments, most of which were under the purview of the NIH. A 2023 research review stated, “The failure rate for the translation of drugs from animal testing to human treatments remains at over 92%, where it has been for the past few decades. The majority of these failures are due to unexpected toxicity — that is, safety issues revealed in human trials that were not apparent in animal tests — or lack of efficacy.”

Senior Vice President of the White Coat Waste Project (WCWP) Justin Goodman said, “Since the Biden Administration killed Trump’s EPA animal testing phaseout and rabbit retirement plan, White Coat Waste exposed how the agency wasted millions of tax dollars to make animals obese, electroshock them, and force them to inhale wildfire smoke and emissions from rifles and handguns in the name of “environmental justice” and compelled companies to poison puppies with pesticides. We’re grateful to Administrator Zeldin for committing to cleaning up the Biden EPA’s disastrous waste by reinstating the Trump plan to eliminate animal testing. Trump’s decision is great news for taxpayers and pet owners as it sends a message to big-spending animal abusers across the federal government: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”

Meanwhile, the FDA announced that its animal testing requirement for monoclonal antibodies and some other drugs will be “reduced, refined, or potentially replaced using a range of approaches.” The approaches mentioned in the press release include “AI-based computational models of toxicity and cell lines and organoid toxicity testing.”

Newly appointed FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, M.D., M.P.H. said the changes will not only reduce the use of animals in experiments, but it will also increase the reliability of patient treatments. Makary said, “By leveraging AI-based computational modeling, human organ model-based lab testing, and real-world human data, we can get safer treatments to patients faster and more reliably, while also reducing R&D costs and drug prices. It is a win-win for public health and ethics.”

Investigational new drug applications will begin using the New Approach Methodologies, which includes evaluating safety data from countries that have already studied the drug’s safety and efficacy on humans. This data can be used when countries have regulatory standards similar to those of the US.

Goodman told The HighWire that the WCWP is thrilled with the progress the new administration has made in reducing the requirements for animal testing and, in the case of the EPA, moved to reduce the amount of animals used in taxpayer-funded toxicity experiments. He pointed out that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., NIH Directory Jay Bhattacharya, and Makary have all made statements supporting the work of WCWP in the past.

Goodman said “White Coat Waste made historic progress under Trump 45 to cut wasteful, dangerous, and cruel experiments on dogs, cats, bats, primates, and other animals in labs worldwide, some of which was recklessly reversed by the Biden Administration. We applaud DOGE, Secretary Kennedy, EPA Administrator Zeldin, FDA Commissioner Makary, and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya for picking up where Trump left off and prioritizing efforts to cut widely opposed animal experiments that waste billions of tax dollars, prevent progress, and prompt pandemics. This is great news for taxpayers and pet owners as it sends a message to big spending animal abusers across the federal government.”

The HighWire reported in January that $10 million was spent on taxpayer-funded transgender studies on mice and monkeys. These experiments were also discussed during the House Oversight Committee hearing in February. There have been 10 NIH grants for transgender animal experiments cancelled by DOGE and the Trump administration.

Goodman said there have been several victories in the movement to stop wasteful, cruel animal testing since the most recent inauguration of President Donald Trump. The Gateway Pundit reported in March that a Chinese lab conducting abusive experiments on hundreds of beagles per week is just one of more than two dozen Chinese labs that are eligible for US taxpayer funding assistance.

The WCWP said on April 1, six Chinese animal labs that conduct animal testing have been disqualified from receiving US federal funding. They have verified that 20 Chinese animal labs are still eligible to receive US taxpayer funding, including the lab conducting tests on 300 beagles per week.