PROGRESS: New law tells USDA to end kitten tests, adopt out cats

Posted by Justin Goodman
15 February 2019 | Blog


UPDATE (4/2/19): Following a year-long White Coat Waste Project campaign, the USDA announced that its kitten slaughterhouse will close permanently and the 14 surviving cats will be adopted out. Read more.

UPDATE (2/15/19): After being passed by Congress this summer, this legislation has been signed into law by President Donald Trump as part of a 2019 federal spending bill.

Original post (5/29/18)

Just three weeks after White Coat Waste Project exposed deadly taxpayer-funded kitten experiments at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)–and our supporters sent nearly 100,000 letters to Congress and the USDA–lawmakers are taking action.

Photos of cats confined at the USDA’s lab in Beltsville, MD obtained via the Freedom of Information Act by WCW.

As reported by POLITICO, CBN and WJLA, last week, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee–which controls the budgets of the USDA and other federal agencies–unanimously passed its 2019 Agriculture spending bill, including language supported by WCW that urges the USDA to end its kitten experiments and adopt out the cats.  Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and John Hoeven (R-ND)–the top lawmakers on the USDA’s funding panel–and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) secured this important measure in the bill with support from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and others on the committee. Next, the bill heads to the full Senate for a vote.

The Senate’s action follows Reps. Mike Bishop (R-MI) and Jimmy Panetta’s (D-CA) introduction of the bipartisan KITTEN Act to permanently end the experiments.

Tell Congress to pass the bipartisan KITTEN Act to permanently defund these deadly taxpayer-funded experiments, and urge USDA to adopt out the cats!

Blog Comments

When does the murdering stop? Who benefits from the useless testing that only feeds the pockets of the so called doctors. so called scientists!?? How heartless…how cruel and believe me these actions against helpless kittens, monkeys, dogs, bunnies and more will be held against the responsible ones. Punished by their own deeds.

Can’t. Wait to adopt one of these kittens!!! How dare the government spend MY MONEY torturing and killing ANY ANIMALS!!!

This is completely cruel and unacceptable! What a disgusting and underhanded use of taxpayers money, and research that could be used to actually benefit the world.

I take this personal because I LOVE CATS!!! I will fight to save them. You have committed a Henious crime every person who was in on this should be prosecuted to the max!!!! STOP KILLING KITTENS!!!! SHUT DOWN TESTING LABS!!!! This has upset me so bad that I’m heartbroken. Why would you do something so terrible to such loving animals? They are so loyal. I want some baby kittens. The decent thing to do is to adopt all the kittens out, cats too. End the torture of these wonderful kittens who endure so much pain and suffering. Let them have loving homes so they can have a family to care for them. They deserve than. NO MORE TESTING ON ANIMALS EVER AGAIN. The people working in the labs, if they have animals should be taken away and rehomed. These people should NEVER be near any animal again .

Yes! Stop torturing innocent, defenseless animals with my tax dollars! Didn’t your parents teach you it’s WRONG to torture and abuse animals? Let these beautiful animals be adopted to loving families!

STOP the suffering,torture,and the pain of these wonderful loving animals!!! Cats are my world, I am a cat person. Shut down all animal labs for good. Cats are my family.

This is horrendous

These BASTARDS NEED THE SAME TREATMENT.

Please Stop the abuse of animals

“Urge?” “Ask?” Are you insane? You “mandate” that it end by Congressional law.

Animals deserve to live, not be killed for anything. And animals deserve to be loved and cared for, and be kind to. And their lives matter just like peoples. And the animal testing needs to stop. It needs to end.

This is ABSOLUTELY disgusting and needs to be STOPPED now!!! Killing kittens??? It never fails to amaze me that if the local news comes on and says this person was caught abusing animals and then they show the person on the news. People would call to put the person or persons in jail (where they belong!!) But if it is a TAX PAID GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT–people say, “Oh they are saving people’s lives!!” First, there is no plausible way that killing kittens will aid humans. SECOND, this is 2018 and there is NO excuse for using ANY animals in experiments!! I have MS, Lupus, Grave’s Disease and RA and I would NOT support using any animals to “fix” any of my problems!! I am LIVID that MY tax dollars are used to fund people LEGALLY TORTURING ANIMALS!!
I actually feed the cats dumped in my subdivision by idiots who got them, and stick them outside without spaying or neutering. Another one showed up 2 weeks ago. Her tiny ribs showed, her backbone showed, and she was crying for help!! There is nothing like the cry of a BABY kitten or puppy, that someone would have to be screwed up in the head to purposefully do anything to hurt them!! The little baby has been eating like a champ for 2 weeks and has gained around 2 pounds!! As soon as she sees the can, she starts to cry and once she is done eating, she comes over and licks my hand and rubs her little head on my leg!!
On May 4th of this year the methamphetamine users/dealers who lived catty corner to me, were finally tossed from their home for non-payment of house taxes. They had no water or electric for the last year because none of them worked and why spend money on electric or water when you can snort meth up your nose!! The man who was hired by the new owners to repair what these idiots did to the house showed up on May 10th. He came outside and saw me and said that there was a cat locked in the back bedroom of that house!! The room was FULL of dirty, used baby diapers. We figured out that they (who have no kids!!) were using the diapers themselves and then putting them in that bedroom. When they moved out on May 4th, they locked their cat in that room full of dirty diapers!! There was no water, no food, and no open window!!
A few minutes later, I saw the cat, lying on my lawn. it was so thirsty and hungry!! Her body temp was way up and I had to bring her to the driveway and cool her down with water. This poor thing had used the last of its strength to walk to my yard. I started to feed her a tiny bit at a time as well as to use an eye dropper to get water into her a little at a time. If you feed or water too quickly, it will make them sick. Now it has been 2 1/2 months since “Kitty” first showed up. She is now ready to go to the local clinic to make sure she is spayed. Her teeth show her to be an elderly cat–at least 10 or 11 years old!!
If this was the first time these morons had starved an animal, I would say maybe an accident. But 4 years ago they starved a tiny dog almost to death. It escaped from the house and was found by another neighbor who nursed it back to health. One day when the dog was with my good neighbor for 5 days, and they were walking her, the meth heads came running out. THAT IS OUR DOG!! Really??? Want to explain the condition of this dog to the sheriff??? Sadly our sheriff has known since 2011 about the meth dealing and did NOTHING. When they were arrested, they were out like a revolving door on the jail!!
And just think, these bozos at the USDA are doing the SAME thing and get away with it just like the meth dealers!!

You all are as barbaric and inhumane as the Chinese and the Koreans. What you are doing is just plain evil and you evidently have a murderous heart because this is something that you are enjoying doing. Where a heart is supposed to be all there is is a deep black hole. How do you live with yourselves?!

Unnecessary cruelty! Absolutely wrong on many levels! STOP the madness!!!

Stop the kitty torture, for chrissakes!

Nonsense stop the killing ! Please adopt them out to a good loving home . Truly it’s the least you can do for them .

God did not make these wonderful animals just to be tortured and killed.This is evil and the work of the devil and his advocates. There is no good reason to harm and kill any animal. I love cats for especially and they have helped me during bouts of depression. Look at all what dogs do for our injured veterans, and blind people and others that need a service dog. They are blessings for mankind to love and treasure. Please stop cruelty and murder of innocent animals. Pass a law that prohibits animal testing.

These animals are tortured on a daily basis. We must end all funding on animal testing. We do not, as Taxpayers, want to fund cruelty and abuse to animals. This is so wrong. This should have ended YEARS AGO. There’s no good reason for animal torture.

Sharon, July 19, 2018 Reply

Unnecessary cruelty! Absolutely wrong. What are worst than animal kindow. STOP

we either love our pets OR we love all animals. can’t have it both ways. you eat animals, you don’t love them- because, animals, like humans, are created equal…

Speciesism is a fallacy that must be assigned to the trash heap of history. No animal wants to die or suffer & we have no justification for exploiting them because we can. No animal should be born to be killed for our so called benefit.

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