Despite Modernization Act FDA Still Requiring Animal Testing

UPDATE: A group of bipartisan Senators, led by Cory Booker (D-NJ), has introduced the FDA Modernization Act 3.0 to ensure that the FDA will finally update its regulations and remove cruel and unnecessary animal testing mandates on new drugs.

We have updated this petition into a direct letter campaign urging U.S. legislators to pass this bill. We also sent a letter to Acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner with the names of all original petition signers, urging her to enforce the Modernization Act 2.0 now. If you previously signed, you can still write to your senators in support of this bill.

Every year in the United States, around 25 million animals suffer and die in horrific and unnecessary laboratory experiments. The vast majority of these innocent dogs, primates, rabbits, mice, and other animals live their entire lives locked inside barren cages, waiting in fear to be taken out and subjected to unthinkable tortures before they are eventually killed in the name of research.

In December of 2022, a monumentally important bipartisan bill that should save millions of animals from the tragic fate of lab testing, the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, was passed by Congress as part of the 2023 federal omnibus appropriations bill and signed into law by President Biden.

The FDA Modernization Act 2.0 ended a federal mandate that experimental drugs must be tested on animals before they are used on humans in clinical trials, a requirement that had been in effect since 1938. The new law was designed to allow scientists to use safer, more reliable alternatives such as “tests conducted in vitro, in silico, or in chemico.” However, over two years later, the FDA has failed to update its regulations, and scientists who are currently submitting “Investigational New Drug (IND)” applications must still deal with FDA regulations that require animal trials.

The FDA Modernization Act 2.0 made animal trials optional, but by failing to update its forms, the FDA is essentially forcing scientists to continue testing on animals in violation of the 2022 law, despite the fact that 90-95% of drugs that pass animal tests eventually fail in human clinical trials, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars every year and precious time for patients.

This is unacceptable! The millions of animals languishing in testing labs for no reason deserve action now.

To address this problem, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators, including Cory Booker (D-NJ), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Rand Paul (R-KY), Angus King (I-ME), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), John Kennedy (R-LA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and Roger Marshall (R-KS), have reintroduced the FDA Modernization Act 3.0, which will force the FDA to finally update its regulations and end mandatory drug testing on animals once and for all.

If you live in the U.S., please reach out to your senators and ask them to cosponsor the FDA Modernization Act 3.0. (S.355). If one of the above list of original cosponsors is your state senator, the form will allow you to send a message thanking them for supporting this compassionate legislation.

If you don’t live in the United States, you can help raise awareness for this important bill by sharing this petition on social media.