UPDATE December 28, 2020: The FDA’s 2021 funding bill has been signed into law! In it lawmakers stressed that the FDA should “reduce primate testing, prioritize alternative research methods, and seek opportunities to relocate primates to sanctuaries.” Congress also reiterated their keen interest in a report on the agency’s strategy and timeline for the reduction of its wasteful primate testing and the retirement of monkeys. Read more about this and other WCW wins for animals and taxpayers in the 2021 funding bill in our new blog.

UPDATE July 24, 2020: Winning for primates! The FDA’s 2021 funding bill just passed in the full House of Representatives, with our language in it directing the agency to reduce primate experiments. Now the bill goes to the Senate. We will keep you posted on further developments!

Original post:
Last year, we worked with Congress to include a measure in the Food and Drug Administration’s 2020 spending bill directing the FDA to provide a strategy and timeline for the reduction of its wasteful primate testing and the retirement of monkeys. It was the first time Congress threw down the gauntlet and demanded that the FDA create a plan to reduce taxpayer-funded primate tests.

That report is still forthcoming, but Congress isn’t letting the FDA off the hook. In the agency’s 2021 funding bill, which just unanimously passed the House Appropriations Committee, lawmakers working with WCW reiterated their interest in this report and stress that the FDA should “reduce primate testing, prioritize alternative research methods, and seek opportunities to relocate primates to sanctuaries.”

We are extremely grateful to FDA Appropriations Chairman Sanford Bishop (D-GA), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Waste Warrior awardee Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) for their outstanding leadership to champion this cost-saving and life-saving measure. You can read the measure on page 89 of the FDA’s spending bill.

This legislation isn’t the only progress for FDA primates for us all to be proud of.

With the help of legendary primate expert Dr. Jane Goodall, two years ago WCW ended wasteful $5.5 million nicotine addiction experiments on monkeys at the FDA. We had the honor of retiring 26 monkeys from the nicotine lab to a sanctuary in Florida. The move marked the first time in history that the FDA retired monkeys to a sanctuary, instead of killing them.

Since then, WCW convinced the FDA to enact an agency-wide lab animal retirement policy so more animals can see the light of day after being abused in government experiments.

One of the monkeys released to sanctuary after a successful WCW campaign shut down the FDA’s wasteful $5.5 million nicotine addiction experiments.

You deserve better than to have your hard-earned money wasted by the FDA to torture primates in government labs of horror—where hundreds of monkeys are exposed to arsenic, dosed with Ritalin, and pregnant monkey moms are injected with drugs to cause birth defects. This is on top of incompetent bureaucrats letting monkeys strangle to death in experimental restraint devices. We’re proud to work with Reps. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to hold the FDA accountable for its waste of tax dollars and abuse of primates.

We are working very hard to make this stop.

The FDA spending bill now goes to the full House Appropriations Committee for a vote, before heading to the full House and the Senate for votes. We’ll be shepherding it through the legislative process, and will let you know as soon as we have news.

The incredible progress comes thanks to WCW (if we do say so ourselves!) and our 2 million members, lawmakers, and the majority of Americans who oppose this waste and abuse.

You can help! Please take a moment to write your Congress members to urge them to cut funding for ALL primate experiments.