After federal authorities announced plans to phase out sheep testing, US president Donald Trump is receiving a rare ovation from animal advocacy organizations, including PETA. Changes that would shift research practices towards modern, humane alternatives have been proposed by the Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) and the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ).
The FDA’s news, according to senior vice president at PETA, is” a significant stage” in the direction of ending harmful and outdated screening techniques. She praised the FDA’s decision to stop harming species and choose human-relevant assessment methods, according to Fox News.
The group also calls for a more unified commitment to stop all government-funded animal experiments, including those conducted on monkeys in animal research facilities.
The FDA intends to replace laboratory-grown people organoids and AI-based modeling with tools like lab-grown human organoids and artificial intelligence. Dr. Martin Makary, a director, claimed that these methods could result in lower costs, faster drug approvals, and safer treatments while also reducing animal harm.
EPA director Lee Zeldin announced the resumption of a 2019 Trump-era order to end animal tests by 2035 at the same time. According to EPA officers, that earlier plan had been slowed under the Biden management. Zeldin vowed to return the organization to its original course.
However, the National Association for Biomedical Research cautioned that animal testing is still required in some areas of drug creation where sophisticated physiological processes are still being developed.
Trump had previously stated that tax money was being wasted on unnecessary study. The president claimed that the government had spent$ 8 million on “making mice transgender” during a speech to Congress in March.
According to a report from the watchdog group White Coat Waste Project, which is opposed to government-funded animal testing, over$ 10 million in taxpayer money was “wasted” on studies involving transgender mice, rats, and monkeys in university labs.
