VICTORY: FDA enacts lab animal retirement policy following WCW campaign
In late 2018, 26 squirrel monkeys were released from a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lab after White Coat Waste Project successfully shut down a wasteful $5.5 million nicotine addiction experiment on the primates. Now, even more survivors will have a chance to make it out of FDA testing labs alive.
New FDA policy allows lab animals to be adopted after experiments https://t.co/MhGN4eDMVD pic.twitter.com/sSnFnj3Iko
— The Hill (@thehill) February 7, 2020
As first reported in The Hill, following pressure from WCW and bipartisan lawmakers, the FDA has enacted its first-ever, agency-wide policy allowing dogs, primates and other lab survivors to be retired after experiments.
This is great news! I’m glad @US_FDA has enacted a new policy allowing lab animals it uses to conduct research to retire & be adopted by loving owners. As a cosponsor of the #AFTERAct, I’ll keep fighting to secure a second chance for research animals used in all federal labs. https://t.co/wgpopMBvEr
— Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (@SenatorShaheen) February 9, 2020
The FDA move comes after more than 1.2 million WCW advocates joined the #GiveThemBack campaign and asked the agency to retire lab animals. The policy breakthrough also follows the introduction of the AFTER Act in the House by Reps. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), Jackie Walorski (R-IN) and in the Senate by Susan Collins (R-ME) and Gary Peters (D-MI). The bipartisan bill would require all federal agencies to allow lab survivors to be adopted out to taxpayers or retired to sanctuaries.
Squirrel monkeys before and after being retired to a sanctuary from the FDA nicotine testing lab shut down following a WCW campaign
The FDA experiments on over 2,000 primates, rabbits and other regulated animals each year. Yet, other than the 26 monkeys released from the now-defunct nicotine lab, the agency has not retired any other survivors. This new policy will change that.
As a cosponsor of the AFTER Act, I applaud the FDA for enacting a policy allowing lab animals to be retired & adopted.https://t.co/YPjkwJAGoQ
— Congressman Fred Keller (@RepFredKeller) February 10, 2020
The new development is especially timely because in December 2019, Congress enacted historic WCW-backed legislation directing the FDA to develop a timeline and plan for the reduction of testing on primate tests and their retirement to sanctuaries. The new policy provides a framework for the relocation of primates as more of this wasteful testing is cut.
Good news: The @US_FDA has a new policy based on my bipartisan AFTER Act I introduced last year that will help ensure animals no longer used in federal research can be adopted:https://t.co/rQNvS1pIER https://t.co/lYvh7K6PJ9
— Senator Gary Peters (@SenGaryPeters) February 9, 2020
The FDA joins the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as the only federal agencies to have animal retirement policies.
Contact your lawmakers and tell them to pass the AFTER Act to require all federal agencies that do animal testing to create retirement policies for animals!
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Please pass the AFTER Act to require that all federal agencies that do animal testing create retirement policies for animals!
Let these animals be adopted out, this would be the right thing to do.
Let the animals be adopted out
Pasta after Act it’s the right thing to do
This is great
Please pass the After Act to require all federal agencies that do animal testing to create retirement policies for animals.
This is a good start but the torturous experiments on these animals needs to stop. The affects of these cruel experiments will last most of there short lives. There’s plenty of people out there let them volunteer. The ” Human Population Clock” is running out of control.
Please pass this AFTER Act so that these animals can be retired to reputable sanctuaries or adopted into caring homes. That is the least we can do for them after they were part of these inhumane experiments!
Pass the AFTER Act
Finally
These animals shouldn’t be used for this in the first place, the least theses places can do is give them the chance of a proper life to be loved and cared for .
Please give these animals their right to a normal life!
Finally! Good job!
How a bout STOP THE TESTING
Pass the AFTER Act to require all federal agencies that do animal testing to create retirement policies for animals!
Please be decent human beings and allow these animals peace and the opportunity to be free in a sanctuary or with a family that will love them.
End the abuse
We are still doing things to animals in federal agencies which it should be stopped but we have to at least give them good homes when it is all done.