Unprecedented NIH Advisory Group Recommendations Echo PETA’s

For Immediate Release:
December 19, 2023

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Washington – Please see the following statement from PETA neuroscientist Dr. Emily Trunnell regarding the recommendations made by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Advisory Committee to the Director Working Group on Catalyzing the Development and Use of Novel Alternative Methods to Advance Biomedical Research:

For years, PETA has provided practical suggestions to NIH for implementing superior, human-relevant research methods to replace the use of animals in experimentation—and now a working group convened by the agency has finally listened. Click here for a side-by-side comparison. PETA applauds the group’s recommendations to new NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli for modernizing research. The recommendations include the following:

• Creating new funding mechanisms for non-animal research
• Supporting training in non-animal methods and establishing dedicated infrastructure for them
• Working to reduce animal methods bias
• Supporting research on the cost benefits of non-animal science
• Harmonizing the use of these advanced methods nationally and internationally
• Facilitating widespread use of the human biology–based data that these methods generate.

This is progress, but to truly revolutionize science, increased investment in non-animal methods alone won’t do the trick. NIH must also stop funding junk science that kills animals and produces no human benefits, as outlined in PETA scientists’ Research Modernization Deal, a comprehensive strategy for replacing animal experiments with better research methods.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.