This alert and the one before it were successful and the House and the Senate have passed this bill, but under different bill numbers. The next step was to encourage the House of Representatives to make the bill (under a new bill number) become law, and that passed too and was signed into law by President Biden. Learn more.

We recently asked our supporters to contact their representatives in the House in support of the FDA Modernization Act (H.R. 2565) which will eliminate cruel, unnecessary, and wasteful testing on animals for the research and development of new drugs.

Every year, millions of terrified animals, including mice, rats, rabbits, cats, dogs, and monkeys, are subjected to agonizing tests in laboratories to develop drugs. These tests involve exposing animals to new drug formulations including all of the ingredients used, to observe the results over both short and long-term studies. Animals may experience cancer, reproductive harm, birth defects, internal and external bleeding, muscle cramps, digestive problems, paralysis, and more.

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act dates all the way back to 1938 and requires that all drugs are tested on animals. However, there have been tremendous advancements in science and technology over the past 80 years. It has long been known that these studies yield unreliable results that do not indicate potential hazards to human health. The physiology of humans differs from that of other animals, and results can vary widely between various species. The way an animal responds to a chemical does not indicate what the human response will be. If a chemical is determined to be safe for a specific kind of animal, it does not automatically mean it is safe for humans.

Testing on animals to develop new drugs is cruel, wasteful, and unnecessary. While millions of animals suffer and die in labs, over 90% of drugs that are deemed safe and effective in animal studies fail in human clinical trials.

The National Institutes of Health wastes $12 billion every year on research that does not lead to the development of new treatments for humans.

If enacted as part of the Food and Drug Amendments of 2022, the FDA Modernization Act will eliminate animal-testing requirements for the development of drugs.

Cell-based assays, organ-on-a-chip technology, computer models, and other human biology-based test methods would be allowed. Simply put, the FDA Modernization Act of 2021 would allow drug manufacturers to opt out of animal testing while utilizing modern testing methods to develop drugs. Unfortunately, animal tests would still be allowed under this bill, however, drug manufacturers would have the ability to choose modern, animal-free tests instead. While not perfect, this bill is a tremendous step toward ending animal testing in its entirety. If this bill passes, we will campaign against drug manufacturers to urge them to choose animal-free testing methods.

This alert and the one before it were successful and the House and the Senate have passed this bill, but under different bill numbers. The next step was to encourage the House of Representatives to make the bill (under a new bill number) become law, and that passed too and was signed into law by President Biden. Learn more.