Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins has confirmed the department will end at least some of its primate testing before the deadline set by Congress.
In 2024, Congress enacted legislation to eliminate all tests on cats, dogs, and primates by 2026, but the VA is still conducting horrific spinal cord injuries on monkeys in San Diego.
Collins confirmed the efforts during a congressional hearing about the budget on Thursday.
WATCH:
Thank you @SecVetAffairs & @RepNancyMace!
Following years of work by WCW & Rep. Mace, Sec. Collins just confirmed the VA is on track to end primate testing before Congress’s 2026 deadline
The VA previously cut all dog & cat tests after a WCW campaign & action by Trump 45 pic.twitter.com/iJzD1gQI69
— White Coat Waste (@WhiteCoatWaste) May 15, 2025
The changes come after years of campaigning by the watchdog organization White Coat Waste, which seeks to end cruel and unnecessary taxpayer-funded animal research. Since 2016, the organization has worked to expose how the VA was giving puppies heart attacks, injecting monkeys with angel dust, crippling kittens, drilling into cat’s skulls, and much more.
The VA is eliminating all wasteful primate tests following years of WCW investigations & campaigns that prompted historic action by Congress & the 1st Trump Administration
Read more about how we did ithttps://t.co/cB0NPHDIhT
— White Coat Waste (@WhiteCoatWaste) May 15, 2025
President Donald Trump laid the groundwork for this during his first term by issuing a directive to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prioritize reducing animal testing, aiming for a 30% reduction by 2025 and complete elimination by 2035. He also ended a nicotine addiction study on monkeys at the FDA and banned several dog experiments at the VA.
Joe Biden had upended the plan to phase out the testing, which WCW also revealed, but Trump’s new administration has worked even harder to end the outdated practice.
The new administration has already begun ending animal testing at both the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. It has also cancelled grants for many cruel research projects, saving taxpayers millions of dollars.
Though PETA keeps making the media rounds claiming victory for many of White Coat Waste’s wins, they remain the only animal advocacy organization to shut down any government primate lab in nearly a decade, any government dog testing labs in almost 20 years, and any government cat lab in the last 40 years.
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