Lawmakers Renew Efforts to Protect Animals in Government Labs
Bipartisan legislation builds on current policies at the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health.
A pair of bipartisan senators reintroduced a bill earlier this week that would facilitate the retirement or adoption of animals used in federal agencies’ research.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Gary Peters, D-Mich., introduced the Animal Freedom from Testing, Experimentation and Research Act on Tuesday. About 20 agencies use animals for research, according to the Government Accountability Office. The federal government experimented on about 38,000 animals (mainly cats, dogs, monkeys and rabbits) in fiscal 2019 for research purposes and many agencies currently don’t have formal retirement or adoption policies for animals that aren’t needed anymore. As a result, many are killed, said the senators in a press release.