Update: PETA has just received more good news for animals in laboratories: Tox21, an ongoing collaboration among the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will use a high-speed robotic screening system—not animals—to test 10,000 chemicals for toxicity. This switch will prevent countless animals from suffering in painful and antiquated tests. Could the government actually be moving into the 21st century on this issue?

The scientists in our Regulatory Testing Division always appreciate PETA supporters who respond to their (ahem) somewhat technical action alerts. And they especially appreciate the more than 25,000 of you who responded over the past year to our alert calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to use non-animal methods to reduce the numbers of animals to be killed in the agency's massive endocrine-disruptor screening program (EDSP). 

On Tuesday, your efforts paid off, and the EPA issued a statement pledging to implement changes to the EDSP that have the potential to save more than 3 million animals!

The EPA's new work plan, EDSP21, will use non-animal methods such as computer models and tests known as "high-throughput assays." In issuing EDSP21, the EPA stated that by incorporating advances in computational modeling, molecular biology, and toxicology, "EPA will prioritize and screen chemicals with greater speed, efficiency, and accuracy, while minimizing the use of laboratory animals."

PETA's scientists worked exhaustively over the past five years to push the EPA in this direction by publishing op-eds; submitting legal petitions, technical comments, and testimony; lobbying; and making presentations at conferences and workshops. Six months ago, PETA published an article in a scientific journal and provided the EPA with a clear pathway that is strikingly similar to what the EPA is now planning to implement. 

The EPA's current EDSP program requires the use of approximately 500 animals per chemical screened for potential interaction with the endocrine system. Since the EPA has estimated that there are between 6,000 and 9,700 chemicals to be prioritized and screened, the potential to save animal lives is huge. PETA will, of course, remain hyper-vigilant to ensure that the EPA follows through on this commitment.

We're also keeping the pressure on Congress to end invasive experiments on chimpanzees and retire all the federally owned chimpanzees to sanctuaries. You can now help get chimpanzees out of laboratories and into sanctuaries by clicking here to urge your congressional representatives to pass the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act.

Written by Jessica Sandler

In a move that has been a decade in the making, pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk has announced that it will no longer use animals in quality-control tests of each batch of the biological products—including vaccines—that it manufactures. This move will spare more than 700 animals every year. 

Scientists in PETA's Regulatory Testing Division (RTD) have been working for years to promote the implementation of non-animal methods for vaccine batch–testing and recently published an article in the science journal Animals highlighting the multipronged approach that they have used to save thousands of animals' lives. 

Of the approximately 10 million animals used annually to produce vaccines, about 80 percent are used in horrifyingly painful testing that is conducted for each batch of vaccines, so it is easy to understand why RTD's work is critically important. 

Among the successes detailed in the journal article was pushing industry to take full advantage of available alternatives to the use of hamsters and other animals for testing the leptospirosis vaccine. PETA also tackled erysipelas testing and achieved an exciting victory when the U.S. Department of Agriculture replaced the protocol for testing on pigs with the non-animal method. 

RTD continues to hammer away at other gruesome government-mandated experiments, including the one for rabies batch potency–testing, which requires injecting hundreds of mice with the rabies virus—for each batch of rabies vaccine. The injections go through the animals' skulls and directly into their brains. Half of the animals receive a protective vaccine, while the others do not. Most of the unprotected mice die painfully and slowly from convulsions, loss of muscle control, and eventual suffocation. 

Not only are the tests for vaccine potency typically very painful, drawn out, and lethal for animals, regulators also agree that they are not as effective as modern methods of testing vaccine strength and safety. Better, more precise tests have been developed but have not yet been validated for use. 

You can help support RTD's efforts to pressure government agencies to validate effective, sophisticated alternatives to animal tests by donating today.