Report Card > World Wildlife Fund

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PETA wrote to the World Wildlife Fund because it is responsible for initiating and designing the EPA’s notorious Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP)—the largest animal-testing program of all time. According to the EPA’s Web site on this program, as many as 80,000 chemicals will be tested. Scientific estimates of animal usage are that between 600,000 and 1.2 million animals will be killed to test each 1,000 chemicals. This enormous program is moving ahead despite widespread criticism from the scientific and regulatory communities—and even from some within the environmental community. Download PETA’s EDSP factsheet for more information.

The World Wildlife Fund has been heavily involved at virtually every stage of development of the EDSP, including pressuring Congress to establish the program, lobbying for increased funding, and weighing in on the test methods used. The World Wildlife Fund was represented on the EPA's former Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee (EDSTAV) and Standardization and Validation Task Force (SVTF) and is currently represented on the Endocrine Disruptor Methods Validation Subcommittee (EDVMS). The World Wildlife Fund did not object to the fact that 10 of the 13 tests recommended by EDSTAC were animal-poisoning studies. In fact, the organization's only objection was to PETA's request that meetings of the SVTF—which were being held behind closed doors and often at the office of the World Wildlife Fund itself—be made open to the public. The World Wildlife Fund also organized and signed a joint letter to U.S. senators and representatives in April 2000 reiterating its vehement support for not only EDSP in general, but animal-testing in particular.

Despite the World Wildlife Fund’s obvious indifference to the suffering of animals subjected to chemical-poisoning tests, PETA asked the organization to endorse a statement:

• calling on EPA to increase its funding and use of non-animal test methods; and

• endorsing the use of only those new test methods that have been rigorously assessed by the Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) and found to be scientifically valid.

On April 5, 2001, the director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Toxic Chemicals Initiative, Clifton Curtis, responded to PETA’s letter. He did not endorse PETA’s call for increased federal funding for the development and validation of non-animal test methods and reiterated the World Wildlife Fund’s ardent support for using animals in chemical testing.

Most recently, the World Wildlife Fund's representative on the EPA's EDVMS stated, in reference to a proposed test that would kill as many as 3,000 animals each time it was conducted: "I think that what you want to do is terrific! ... But can't we cut the hearts out and keep them? Why throw the hearts away? Why throw the pancreases away?" Far from advocating reduced reliance on animal testing, representatives of the World Wildlife Fund consistently throw the organization's full support behind any and all animal tests, regardless of how cruel or wasteful they are.

What you can do

Please send polite letters urging the World Wildlife Fund to withdraw its support for animal-testing. Click here for points you can include in your letter. Send letters to:

Kathryn S. Fuller, President
World Wildlife Fund
1250 24th St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20037
Fax: 202-861-8378
E-mail: Kathryn Fuller's e-mail address has changed or has been disconnected. We apologize to those whose letters to WWF have been returned as undeliverable, and urge you to re-send your letters to Ms. Fuller's assistant, Lisa.Clark@wwfus.org, and the WWF scientist chiefly responsible for the EPA's endocrine disruptor screening program, Theo.Colborn@wwfus.org.