Fighting Against Regulatory Testing on Animals

Our Regulatory Testing Campaign might not be one of PETA's most visible initiatives to combat animal experimentation, but regulatory testing uses so many animals that it eclipses all other categories combined.

Regulatory agencies in the United States—including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—as well as agencies in the European Union and elsewhere in the world require chemicals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and many other products to be tested for toxicity. These tests often involve forcing animals to ingest, inhale, or otherwise consume toxic substances such as gasoline components and mercury. Animals used in these tests suffer extreme pain before they are killed, dissected, and thrown away like garbage.

Thanks to our team of top-notch scientists, PETA now has the scientific expertise to deal with the enormous range of federally regulated substances. We have become one of the most credible and influential of all the organizations that are currently engaged in the fight against toxicity testing on animals. This team of experts is leading the way in reforming federal and international regulations that require substances to be tested on animals.

Highlights and Accomplishments
The following are just some of the accomplishments of PETA's Regulatory Testing division:

• In 1999, more than 800,000 animals were saved, thanks to PETA's campaign against the U.S. government's high production volume chemical-testing program. Negotiations and campaign tactics persuaded the White House to make significant changes to the program, including replacing some tests with non-animal methods, delaying some tests for two years to allow for the development of non-animal tests, and dedicating $5 million to fund non-animal methods.
• PETA members flooded Congress with more than 50,000 letters demanding changes to the EPA's Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program, which was designed to kill tens of thousands of animals.
• To combat the EPA's massive chemical-testing programs that were backed by "mean greenies"—environmental groups that advocate animal testing, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the World Wildlife Fund, and Environmental Defense—we launched MeanGreenies. This campaign was intended to push organizations that claim to care about the environment and wildlife to support and promote non-animal testing methods.
• PETA created the "Give the Animals 5" campaign and filed shareholder resolutions with more than 20 of the largest chemical and pharmaceutical companies. We called on those companies to abandon five crude and cruel animal tests and replace them with state-of-the-art and scientifically valid non-animal methods that are already in use in other countries. This campaign has led to active discussions and animal welfare improvements at such Fortune 100 companies as Exxon, General Electric, and Dow Chemical.
• PETA researched and published a major study that detailed the failure of the two-year rodent cancer bioassay to protect human health as well as another important report that explained the reasons for the failure of the U.S. to implement non-animal testing methods and proposed comprehensive solutions to this problem. The report was the impetus for a major Washington Post exposé.
• PETA has given almost $1,000,000 to the development and implementation of non-animal testing methods and received an award from the Institute for In Vitro Sciences for providing more funding for these methods than multibillion-dollar corporations have provided.

Help support the fight to eliminate and find alternatives to cruel and irrelevant animal testing today!