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House funding bill promotes humane research alternatives and adoption of dogs, cats, and rabbits formerly used in research

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We urge the Senate to follow suit

We’re delighted that the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations recently approved the fiscal year 2023 Labor Health and Human Services Funding Bill including some of the goals that we've been campaigning hard for. The Bill supports maximizing the use of humane non-animal research methods in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded research and encourages the release of dogs, cats, and rabbits for adoption from NIH-funded laboratories.

The relevant sections of the bill, read,

“Humane Research Alternatives. —Recognizing that humane, cost effective, and scientifically suitable non-animal methods are available for certain research models but underutilized, the Committee directs NIH to establish incentives to encourage investigators to utilize non-animal methods whenever appropriate for the research question and establish standardized guidelines for peer review evaluation of the justification for research with animals.”

“The Committee encourages NIH to recommend that grantees receiving extramural funds from NIH for research using dogs, cats, or rabbits implement post-research adoption policies for those animals and to maintain records on the aggregate number of animals released for adoption. The post-research adoption policies and animal release numbers should be made publicly available.”

The Senate must next consider its version of the Bill, where we are calling on Senators to agree the wording proposed by the House Committee before sending the final Bill to the President for his signature.

The wording is inspired by the Humane and Existing Alternatives in Research and Testing Sciences [HEARTS] Act and the Companion Animal Release from Experiments [CARE] Act, which we have been supporting for several years. Including the goals of these acts in must-pass appropriations bills is a way to advance them as we continue to build support.

US residents can help by asking your US Representatives to become a cosponsor of the HEARTS Act and the CARE Act.

You can also show your support with our campaign T-shirts and hoodies.