Powerful new allies have joined White Coat Waste Project’s coalition campaign to cut FDA red tape and stop waste, spare dogs, and save lives: Bipartisan members of Congress.

As first reported by the Washington Examiner, thanks to you, powerful Republicans and Democrats just sent this strongly worded letter to the Food and Drug Administration, challenging its wasteful, burdensome, and cruel maximum pain mandate.

Citing WCW-led coalition concerns, 18 members of Congress led by Reps. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) and Scott Perry (R-PA) fired off a letter to Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, Commissioner of the FDA, demanding answers about why agency bureaucrats are forcing drug  makers to navigate red tape when cutting it would “save time, money and dogs, and accelerate medical innovation.”

More than a dozen members of Congress, including @RepScottPerry and @RepBrendanBoyle, sent a letter to @SteveFDA demanding answers on why the FDA sometimes makes pharmaceutical companies perform costly experiments on dogs.https://t.co/hsmbXYenIP

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) July 22, 2020

You called. They answered. Here’s what they wrote to the FDA:

“We want to ensure that unnecessary FDA animal testing red tape does not pose obstacles to medical innovation or slow development of safe and effective drugs, including COVID-19 vaccines and therapies that are desperately needed to restore public health and fully re-open the economy.”

You can read the full letter here. 

We are very grateful to Reps. Boyle and Perry, and their colleagues Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Debra Haaland (D-NM), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), Dina Titus (D-NV), Richard Neal (D-MA), Alcee Hastings (D-FL), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH), Cynthia Axne (D-IA), and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) for their leadership on this extremely urgent issue.

This letter follows more recent #CutFDARedTape progress, coming from Congress.

Earlier this month, the House Appropriations Committee unanimously passed their 2021 FDA funding bill that includes a WCW-backed measure directing the agency to issue a report on how drug makers can avoid wasteful, slow and costly dog testing mandates in favor of more efficient and effective alternatives, and to revise its outdated and burdensome regulations. Reps. Roybal-Allard and Kaptur are members of the Appropriations Committee, in addition to signing today’s letter. (THANK YOU again.)

CALL TO END DOG TESTING: A Tennessee congressman is among 17 others calling on the federal government to end testing on dogs and even small puppies by drug companies.https://t.co/uZNhcNAMTM

— WTVC NewsChannel 9 (@newschannelnine) July 24, 2020

Taxpayers are suffering, right now, because the FDA demands drug makers torture and kill puppies to fulfill pointless dog testing mandates. Even when the industry’s own doctors and scientists don’t want to test pharmaceuticals on dogs.

Bottom line: lifesaving drugs aren’t reaching the patients who need them now, and COVID-19 treatments are being delayed because the FDA’s mandated dog tests are sometimes 9 months long.

The system is sick. The FDA is to blame. We have the cure.

Please join our new coalition by signing our action alert to tell lawmakers you want to cut FDA red tape to spare dogs, stop waste, and save lives!