PETITION TARGETS: Congress members
Brain-damaged kittens forced to walk on treadmills, foxes dissected on an experimental fur farm, and small animals who had their brains infected with the herpes virus — those were just some of the cruel experiments overseas that U.S. taxpayers have funded in recent years.
But now, a new bill could sever U.S. funding to labs like those. The Accountability in Foreign Animal Research (AFAR) Act would ban the National Institutes of Health from funding experiments in countries deemed by the federal government to be “foreign adversaries,” which also are countries that often have dismal welfare protections — if any — for animals exploited in labs.
The bill comes on the heels of numerous wasteful experiments exposed by nonprofit White Coat Waste Project, which reported that the US has spent more than $140 million on animal experiments in foreign labs that have little accountability or transparency.
The exposés helped suspend funding to the Wuhan animal lab reportedly responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic — and it’s by far time for these other inhumane and dangerous experiments to stop.
“To protect our nation from another preventable pandemic, we must take steps to prevent dangerous animal experiments that can lead to the spread of disease,” said Rep. Don Davis, one of the bill’s sponsors. “Hardworking taxpayers in eastern North Carolina and across America should not be paying for risky experimentation in countries not subject to regular oversight and accountability.”
No animal deserves to be tortured in these cruel and pointless experiments.
Sign our petition urging Congress to support and quickly pass the AFAR Act and so save countless lives.
