How animal welfare became a GOP issue
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Animal welfare is becoming part of the Trump health team's agenda, as officials press for changes to drug approvals and product evaluations and portray lab animal testing as a symptom of big-government bloat.
Why it matters: The effort is the product of a more than decade-long push to elevate animal welfare issues with the political right that now features congressional oversight hearings and threats to cut off taxpayer funding.
Case in point: The Food and Drug Administration is phasing out animal testing requirements for antibody therapies and other drugs and telling companies that use other methods that they may receive streamlined product reviews.
- Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the leaders of the FDA and National Institutes of Health urged Canadian food inspection officials last month to spare hundreds of ostriches infected with bird flu from a planned cull, saying there would be benefit in studying the birds' immune response.
- Congressional Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have also held hearings on "taxpayer funded animal abuse" and proposed measures that would close down federally funded labs that use animals.
Trump had a mixed record on animal welfare issues in his first term. While he signed a federal law outlawing animal cruelty as well as animal fighting, his administration rolled back protections for certain at-risk animals, reversed rules restricting hunting on public lands and even deleted records of animal welfare violations.
- The FDA's new non-animal testing strategy could accelerate the process for bringing cures to market and give drug and biotech companies more flexibility — though it relies on some still-unproven alternatives like certain AI models.
Between the lines: Among those driving the shift is the White Coat Waste Project, a libertarian-leaning group that is targeting what it calls "wasteful and secretive" taxpayer-funded experiments over its ethical concerns around animal testing.
- Founder Anthony Bellotti, a former Republican congressional staffer, told Axios the group adapted the playbook for cutting off federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
- Activists "went after the money source, because if you can fund a problem, you can defund it," Bellotti said. "And I said, 'Holy crap, animal testing is virtually all taxpayer-funded.'"
- The group has portrayed animal experiments as government waste, pointing to studies that show an 85% failure rate in studies that rely on animal models.
- The group has published controversial investigations of NIH-funded research, claiming taxpayers funded experiments where beagles were "bitten to death by flies" and that former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci wasted $1 million on painful experiments on the dogs. NIAID has disputed the findings.
Zoom in: The shift in framing animal welfare so it appeals to conservatives, including linking it to causes like states' rights, has taken place over many years, said Republican lobbyist Marty Irby.
- "I use the term creation care a lot ... we have all these things that we talk about: taking care of people, health care, whatever the case may be. But you know, you can't just push animals to the side."
- Efforts to address factory farming not only overlap with the Make America Healthy Again movement's interest in food quality but with national security concerns, since one of the biggest pork producers, Smithfield Foods, is owned by a Chinese company, Irby pointed out.
- There also are attempts to tie animal testing back to conservative suspicion over the pandemic response, including subjecting hamsters, rabbits, monkeys and many other animals to infectious disease experiments without pain management.
- The issue polls highly among voters on both sides of the aisle, Irby said.
The other side: Animal testing remains critical to understanding disease progression and evaluating the safety of drugs, vaccines, food additives and household products.
- Because they're susceptible to many of the same diseases and have shorter life spans, lab animals provide a window into disease processes across several generations.
- Experts say the solution in the near time likely will involve a combination of animal and non-animal testing.
What's next: Bellotti said plans to phase out animal testing don't go far enough, and he's continuing to push for more lab closures. "There's a lot of rhetoric coming out of the NIH that doesn't match reality," he said. "Without a funding cut for animals and labs, without a timetable and a deadline and a commitment to phasing it out ... it's status quo."
- In the House, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) reintroduced a measure aimed at ensuring dogs, cats, and other animals locked in government labs can be retired, instead of killed, when testing labs are defunded.
