The EPA’s sellout to the animal research industry
It is beyond dispute that the EPA rolled back plans to phase out animal testing by 2035 amid severe pushback from key Biden political allies, even though scientists know that animal testing poorly translates to humans. The result is that today, many government-funded scientific endeavors have become little more than an arm of industry marketing efforts and government policymakers.
RISE FOR ANIMALS: At the end of 2023, former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Andrew Wheeler spoke out against animal testing and in favor of “non-animal”, human-relevant methods for determining toxicity. Wheeler lamented that the measures he had put in place for the EPA to phase out animal testing by 2035 – “to spare animals, save tax dollars and protect public health” – had been dismantled since his departure from the EPA in 2021…
Dr. David Lewis, a career EPA scientist, has written previously about “the far-reaching influence of corrupt special interests” and “the ease – and disturbing regularity – with which a small group of individuals, motivated by profit or personal achievement, can completely hijack important areas of research science at even our most trusted institutions. The result is that today, many government-funded scientific endeavors have become little more than an arm of industry marketing efforts and government policymakers”…
In 2008, “a US federal research collaboration” was established that sought to “driv[e] the evolution of Toxicology in the 21st Century by “develop[ing] more relevant and predictive models of in vivo toxicological responses”. In other words, this initiative – known as Tox21 – was predicated upon the recognized and admitted failure of animal data to translate reliably to humans. The founding committee actually went so far as to assert that the EPA’s primary reliance on animal testing is “not well suited to meeting the toxicity challenges that confront EPA”…
It is beyond dispute that the EPA rolled back Wheeler’s plans “amid severe pushback from key Biden political allies”. Even though scientists know that “animal testing poorly translates to humans” – and that non-animal methods “such as computer models and organs-on-chips are faster and more precise at predicting human outcomes”, in addition to being “less expensive” – they “will continue performing [animal experiments] and funding proposals involving animals because they are familiar….”
This familiarity has been described by other experts, such as economist Dr. Joshua Frank, as a “lock in mechanism” that “operate[s] within animal research”: “in using animals to conduct toxicity tests, a knowledge base develops that makes animal research an easier option for scientists conducting future toxicity tests, even though other methods are available”… The result? Today, the EPA “continue[s] to mandate” animal testing for reasons of “[t]radition” even though it has publicly and formally announced the failure of animal testing to serve human interests. SOURCE…
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