We’ve told the story of how WCW ended taxpayer-funded animal testing at the Environmental Protection Agency, becoming the first agency ever to set a benchmark and timeline for the complete phase-out of taxpayer-funded animal testing.

We love telling that story. It’s a great and happy story!

We’ve honored EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler for his historic contributions to ending taxpayer-funded animal experimentation, awarding him White Coat Waste Project’s first-ever Greenbaum Policy Pioneer Award for his visionary leadership.

But that’s not the end. Our work’s not done yet.

Now WCW is fighting for the survivors of the wasteful EPA experiments that Administrator Wheeler is commendably shutting down.

L-R: EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler accepts Greenbaum Policy Pioneer Award from White Coat Waste Project adviser Louise Linton and WCW VP Justin Goodman at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., on October 14, 2020. Photo credit: EPA

More than two years ago, WCW uncovered evidence that the EPA was abusing 20,000 rabbits, mice, and other victims each year in wasteful, cruel, expensive experiments.

The tests our investigators exposed included:

• Animals implanted with devices and forced to breathe diesel exhaust and smog
• Animals force-fed lard to make them obese and then exposed to air pollution
• Animals fed olive and coconut oil and forced to breathe ozone
• Animals blasted with loud noises and exposed to ozone, and
• Pregnant animals stressed with light and noise and babies given electric shocks 

One of the most disturbing & strange ongoing EPA intramural projects we brought to light through our investigations involved the EPA placing male rabbits in a cage with a female “teaser” rabbit.

A screenshot from EPA experiment protocol documents WCW investigators obtained.

When the male mounted the female, the government white coats would introduce a lubricated “artificial vagina” filled with warm water to collect the rabbits’ sperm, which was used “for cell culture testing of environmental chemicals.”

YOU’RE PAYING FOR THIS! 

Another screenshot from EPA experiment protocol documents WCW investigators obtained.

Some the rabbits have been kept at the EPA for nearly a decade. But the bunnies haven’t been given the opportunity to be adopted into a home after they were no longer “useful” as sperm machines.

Instead they’re routinely killed “when ejaculate quality or antibody production declines,” according to documents we obtained last year through the Freedom of Information Act.

With your help, and Administrator Wheeler’s leadership, we made the EPA commit to ending these and other wasteful animal tests.

And we’ve been working with Congress since last year to free these very bunnies and urge the EPA to adopt an agency-wide lab animal retirement policy.

It’s time to do right by the survivors.

We paid for them. We should have a say in what happens to them now.