In recent years, White Coat Waste Project has exposed how federal agencies use your tax dollars to abuse cats, dogs, and primates in wasteful experiments, and that many of these animals are callously killed out of convenience when the testing stops. However, taxpayers bought these animals and we want Uncle Sam to #GiveThemBack.
The campaign has just hit an historic landmark: Over one million WCW advocates have now signed our Change.org petition pressing federal agencies to retire animals no longer needed in experiments.
Clockwise L-R: Cat at USDA’s “kitten slaughterhouse” in Beltsville, MD; squirrel monkey in FDA’s now-defunct nicotine addiction lab; and a dog confined at the VA’s “maximum pain” lab in Richmond, VA.
The campaign is already making a huge impact: We’ve convinced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to adopt the first-ever federal policy promoting lab animal retirement, calling it an “ethical obligation.” And following a WCW campaign, the Food and Drug Administration canceled nicotine tests on monkeys and relocated the monkeys to a sanctuary in Florida.
More than two dozen lawmakers also responded to our pleas and sent a letter to federal agency heads pressing them all to adopt more formal policies and procedures to ensure lab animal adoption.