PETA Helps USDA Reduce Its Use of Mice in Rabies Vaccine Tests

July 2014

U.S. federal laws require that every batch of rabies vaccine be tested to ensure its potency. This means that large numbers of mice are subjected to extremely painful experiments, which are often so inaccurate they have to be repeated several times in order to get a meaningful result, killing as many as 70,000 mice each year. At the encouragement of PETA scientists, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) changed experiment requirements so that the tests wouldn’t need to be repeated, potentially reducing the number of mice used by 50 percent. PETA also made sure that the USDA allowed companies to give the animals anesthetics and pain medication, which had been previously banned.