PETITION TARGET: Leadership of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives
Dogs, cats, and other animals in U.S. laboratories are forced to endure some of the most horrific cruelties imaginable, living in isolation, enduring painful procedures, and being exposed to toxic chemicals. When the experiments conclude, animals routinely killed, their short lives consisting only of suffering.
A new bipartisan bill proposed in the U.S. Senate could finally change that. If passed, the Animal Freedom from Testing, Experimentation, and Research (AFTER) Act (S. 4172) will require federal agencies to establish regulations to safely retire healthy laboratory animals to animal shelters, sanctuaries, or when appropriate, adoptive homes.
The number of animals impacted is substantial: Approximately 20 million animals are used in biomedical research every year, primarily mice and rats, who are not covered by the Animal Welfare Act and are therefore not counted in U.S. records. Many other species suffer for science, including dogs, cats, non-humane primates, horses and pigs, accounting for over 775,000 test subjects in 2024 alone. The AFTER Act could give many of those animals a chance to heal.
Sign our petition calling on Congress to eliminate the needless killing of laboratory animals by supporting the AFTER Act.
