RFK Jr. It wants the US to be the first country to end animal testing

RFK Jr. It wants the US to be the first country to end animal testing

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JOHN WESSELS / AFP via Getty Images

By Jerome London

The push is winning something almost nothing else in Washington is doing right now: a bipartisan deal. New federal offices, canceled grants, and new legislation have already replaced lab animals with human tissue models.

RFK Jr. speaking or appearing in a public forum related to animal testing policy
Image related to RFK Jr.’s push. ending animal testing in the US Photo by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. he’s trying to make the United States the first country to go far in animal testing, and within the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again plan, it’s a rare episode that lauds Democrats.

On June 15, NIH launched the Office of Innovation, Validation, and Application to advance human-related science: 3D tissue models, organoids, organ-on-chips, AI, and advanced cell cultures. The NIH will once again stop awarding grants that rely solely on animal testing, and the FDA released draft guidance on alternatives earlier this year, Roll Call reported.

A man in a navy suit speaks into a microphone at a round table, with a US flag visible in the background.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a roundtable on soil health in the Mike Mansfield Room at the US Capitol on July 15, 2025, with members of the Senate MAHA Caucus. Photo by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images.

Kennedy said his organization is “deeply committed to ending animal testing.” He specifically oversees about 20,000 monkeys imported for US research each year and seven National Primate Research Centers that house about 100,000 monkeys, and has floating facilities for retired lab animals.

Congress is moving too. Rule 3.0 of Sen. Cory Booker’s FDA Modernization Act, which would pressure the FDA to fully implement a 2022 law that eliminated the full requirement for animal testing before human testing, passed the Senate unanimously in December 2025 and cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee in May. The House Appropriations Committee told the NIH to use alternatives more strictly and limit certain painful research on dogs and cats.

A chimpanzee standing in the grass, facing the camera, with thick green leaves in the background.
A chimpanzee – one of many abandoned on islands near Marshall City, Liberia, after the closure of a US-funded hepatitis research lab – waits to be fed by caretakers on November 18, 2021. Photo by John Wessels / AFP via Getty Images.

Booker, a vegan and longtime animal rights advocate, called the administration’s progress “win, win, win, win, win across the board.” Kathy Guillermo, executive vice president of PETA, told Roll Call that Kennedy and others came in “distrustful of the status quo” and “ready to make a change.”

Some scientists want the brakes turned off. The House report itself called non-human primates “crucial” before treatments reach clinical trials, particularly for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Neuroscientist Colin Saldanha puts it clearly: “We cannot measure the behavior of an organism with anything in a petri dish or a computer.”

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