Entering the new millennium, NEAVS steadily gained ground in revitalizing its presence and effectiveness. Our Board of Directors comprised of doctoral level professionals who are committed animal advocates with decades of experience, developed and enacted a strategic plan to guarantee priorities that would dismantle the industry of vivisection piece by piece.
In short, the Board adopted a four-point strategy around which to make our campaign and program decisions:
1. Guiding Tomorrow’s Scientists
Ensuring a future generation of compassionate scientists by guaranteeing that students at all levels of science education have the right to learn without harming or killing animals. From dissection in high school and college to animal labs in veterinary and medical school, science education now deters those who refuse to harm animals from entering the field of science. Guaranteeing the choice of a cruelty-free science education is the only way to allow, support, and encourage compassionate students to enter the field and change the way science does science.
Highlight Campaign: The First U.S. Vet School to End Terminal Labs
In addition to our ongoing work to pass dissection choice laws across the nation and to change medical, med/vet tech, and EMT training, NEAVS successfully ended the use of animals in “terminal labs” at the first veterinary college in the U.S. In 2000, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine became the first veterinary school in the country to no longer require terminal labs, in which students trained by practicing on animals before killing them. The campaign included funding a pilot program for Tufts’ students to learn surgical techniques by performing needed spay/neuter surgery on homeless cats—benefiting the students, cats, and society’s overpopulation problem. Tufts now has an official shelter medicine program which allows students to learn valuable training and skills while simultaneously saving animal lives by providing critical services to shelters. This victory—the result of years of collaboration between NEAVS and Tufts—led the way for other veterinary schools to follow suit. Today in the U.S. some 50% of veterinary schools no longer require terminal labs.
2. Breaking the Species Barrier—affording the first non-human species the ethical and legal right to protection from harmful research.
Changing the laws and ethics of what can and cannot be done to animals in research is the only way to challenge the status quo, which allows researchers to do whatever they want once their protocol is approved by their institution. The one species uniquely positioned to be afforded the same rights and legal protections against harmful research as Homo sapiens is the chimpanzee. In the U.S., the last remaining country that has not banned or limited the use of chimpanzees, the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research has been dramatically declining to an all-time historic low. Today there are limited numbers in U.S. labs. Science recognizes that chimpanzees share the same cognitive, social, and emotional needs as humans. Their touted genetic similarities to humans used to justify the necessity of their use have failed to provide good research for human benefit. The case against the use of chimpanzees—who are so genetically similar to us and yet still fail as a viable model for finding preventions, treatments, and cures for human health—will lead the way for scientific arguments against the use of all species.
Highlight Campaign: Project R&R
On April 1, 2006, NEAVS went live with its website, releasechimps.org. This award-winning comprehensive site provides historic and up-to date information on the plight of chimpanzees in U.S. labs and remains the singularly most valuable resource for others working on their behalf.
On April 20, 2006, NEAVS officially launched Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories in Atlanta, GA—an appropriate location, as it is home to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, where chimpanzee research first began in the U.S. Project R&R seeks to make chimpanzees the first non-human species protected from research. With an estimated 1,065 chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories, the U.S. is the sole large-scale user of chimpanzees in research in the world. Our efforts have culminated in the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, a federal bill to end the use of chimpanzees in invasive research and to release all federally owned chimpanzees into permanent sanctuary.
3. Mandating Alternatives—requiring that where validated alternatives to animals are available, researchers must use them.
Thanks to advances in every major field of science, we have superior research and testing methods that can and must replace the archaic use of animals. The animal model continues in spite of the availability of scientifically validated alternatives—even though science has never validated the animal model itself. It continues to be used because of factors including extensive lobbying by wealthy companies that profit from animal use; extensive funding from the National Institutes of Health for animal research; and assumed protection against litigation for companies whose products are “proven safe” when tested on animals (the status quo), and yet end up harming or killing humans. Government regulatory agencies and research and academic institutions must require the use of alternatives which have proven as effective, if not more so, than animal models. This will overcome the existing inertia and give researchers the economic incentive to continue developing and validating alternatives in assuring their market.
Highlight Campaign: The Mandatory Alternatives Petition
In 2007, NEAVS, a founding member, and a coalition of animal organizations submitted a comprehensive, 66-page Mandatory Alternatives Petition (MAP) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The MAP would require that instead of using animals, that pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, and other entities regulated by the FDA must use validated non-animal methods whenever they exist, changing the way they meet requirements to show drug and product safety for humans and saving tens of millions of animals. Existing validated alternatives are superior in predicting human response and therefore not only more humane but better science as well. While the FDA will not yet mandate the use of alternatives, the MAP coalition is working with the FDA in developing better policy guidelines which will make it clear that animal tests are not required to meet FDA criteria for safety and efficacy.
4. Fighting Science with Science—replacing the rhetoric of pro-vivisection science with the reality of its limitations, dangers, lack of necessity, unproductiveness, and waste of resources.
One of the most critical and effective tools of anti-vivisection today is using science itself to disprove and dispel the self-serving oratory and myths of those who continue to insist that the animal model is necessary and effective. NEAVS’ team of scientists are methodically looking at the use of animals in research, as well as exposing the egregious degree of suffering and trauma they sustain as a result of confinement and use.NEAVS is contributing a unique and overwhelming body of scientific evidence against the use of animals in research, in addition to psychological studies offering undeniable proof of the suffering animals endure in labs. The geneticists, pathologists, psychologists, economists, and others with whom we work are building the case against the use of chimpanzees and other species and publishing their findings in key peer-reviewed journals. NEAVS’ scientific commitment is a rebuttal to accusations that anti-vivisectionists are “anti-science and anti-human.” Our studies disprove their rhetoric about animal research, invalidate their accusations, and provide the caring public with evidence of animal research’s lack of necessity. The American public supports animal research only because researchers lead them to believe it is necessary and that animals do not suffer.
Our scientific papers prove that it is not necessary, and that they do suffer.
In addition to the strategic campaigns we initiate and see to their completion, NEAVS has a major commitment to funding the rescue and permanent sanctuary care of those rescued or retired from research. Since 2000 alone, NEAVS has provided over $1,027,000 to sanctuary care for animals from research.
Highlights: Greenville Wildlife Rescue
In 2002, NEAVS rescued two young chimpanzees, Arthur and Phoenix, from a rundown roadside park in New Hampshire. Born at the infamous Coulston Foundation lab and breeding facility, they were sold as “surplus” into entertainment. After months of negotiation and litigation, we successfully shut down the park and rescued not only Arthur and Phoenix but 22 other exotic animals, including three baby tigers, a camel, a DeBrazza monkey, and others, bringing them all to quality sanctuaries.
Sanctuary: Fauna Foundation
As well as our lifetime commitment to Dana, a chimpanzee at Save the Chimps, FL, NEAVS has dedicated lifetime care to Pepper at the Fauna Foundation sanctuary in Quebec, CA. NEAVS and Fauna work in close cooperation on our mutual goals to end the use of chimpanzees and others in research and provide those rescued with the highest quality of sanctuary care. Fauna’s Director, Gloria Grow, is Project R&R’s co-chair and a crucial part of our programs. NEAVS has established a Lifetime Care Fund to be used for not only Fauna’s residents, but for any and all family or friends of Fauna’s chimpanzees (who were rescued from the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates) living at other U.S. sanctuaries.
Sanctuary: Moon Bears
NEAVS supports efforts to end bear bile farming in Asia and provide sanctuary for moon bears rescued from bile farms. Just as we work to end vivisection in the West, we support all measures to end this heinous vivisection practice in the East, where bear farms confine moon bears in tiny, coffin-like crush cages for years or even decades and subject them to crude surgeries to extract bile from their gall bladders for human medicinal and consumer use. NEAVS has provided several grants to Animals Asia, a leading rescue organization based in China, to help with future rescues and to provide the best care possible in sanctuary. We also have a campaign to educate U.S. schools and practitioners of traditional Asian medicine to Recognize, Reject, and Report any medicines which contain bear bile, endangered species parts, or any other cruelly derived animal ingredients.
Others
Finally, NEAVS helps fund the rescue and lifetime care of monkeys and others from research at sanctuaries across the U.S.
Successes in the anti-vivisection movement
While dismantling a deeply profitable and entrenched institution like animal research is difficult, thanks to NEAVS and other animal organizations and activists, we have seen major advances for animals over the last decade. With each hard-fought victory, we are moving closer to ending the use of animals in all areas of science and education and to humane and better science.
Highlights of anti-vivisection accomplishments over the last decade
- 15 states now have dissection choice laws or policies in place for students
- The Leaping Bunny program currently lists over 300 cosmetic, personal care, and household companies that have eliminated animal testing from their ingredients, formulations, and finished products.
- 48 states no longer require “pound seizure”: the practice of state-run animal shelters releasing homeless animals to facilities and universities for research or testing
- As of 2010, some 600 chimpanzees and hundreds of monkeys have been rescued and brought to sanctuary from various research programs or labs that have closed
- As of 2010, 96% of U.S. medical schools no longer use live animals in their training
- As of 2010, roughly 50% of U.S. veterinary schools no longer require terminal labs
- In 2010 the Ontario Veterinary College ended terminal surgery labs on animals. Today there are no veterinary colleges in Canada that conduct terminal surgeries
- In 2010, after a public outcry, NASA shelved plans for radiation experiments on dozens of monkeys
- A 2008 study revealed that “Cruelty-free is the most widely made ethical claim in new U.S. beauty products,” and that among consumers, two in five American women said they look for beauty products not tested on animals
- In 2007, the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) permanently ended federal funding for breeding chimpanzees for research
- In 2007, the “Chimp Haven is Home Act” amendment was passed, prohibiting all chimpanzees retired from labs under the 2000 CHIMP Act into federal sanctuary from ever being returned to research—successfully closing a loophole to the act that had previously allowed for their return
- In 2005, a public opinion survey showed that Americans are twice as likely to support a ban on chimpanzee research as oppose it. In addition, 71% believe that a chimpanzee used for more than 10 years in research (as approximately 90% of the chimpanzees currently in U.S. labs have been) should be retired
- In 2000, the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection (CHIMP) Act was signed into law, providing retirement and lifetime care for chimpanzees no longer needed in research and prohibiting euthanasia for convenience—a precedent setting law
- Since 2000, there have been four additional World Congresses on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences at which thousands of scientists have met to present the latest research on alternatives
- Since 1998, the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) has contributed to the national and international regulatory acceptance of 42 safety-testing methods that “refine, reduce, or replace” animal use, including more than half (24 testing methods) that do not use live animals at all
Over the next decade, the battles will change. But throughout all the new challenges, NEAVS’ mission will remain steadfast: to expose, oppose, and to end all harmful experiments on living beings, until all animals are protected from research, humans truly benefit from better and more effective alternative research and testing, and the last laboratory cage is empty.