Animal welfare groups praise Trump administration for more moves to reduce animal testing

The same day Make America Healthy Again leaders and medical freedom activists turned on President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for allegedly spurning their vaccine-specific agenda, animal welfare groups praised HHS components for initiatives to further pare back animal testing, part of a surprising emerging alliance between historically progressive and conservative movements.The Food and Drug Administration released a “direct final rule” on “Nonclinical Testing Terminology,” scheduled to be published Tuesday, to clarify that animal testing is not required for all drugs or biological products.
It replaces animal-specific terms, as well as “preclinical” and “in vitro,” with the adjective “nonclinical,” as in nonclinical tests and studies, in line with a 2022 law that recognizes non-animal tests and studies “as possible ways to provide the evidence needed to begin studies in people,” the FDA said Monday.
The agency emphasized it’s not eliminating or prohibiting animal studies, changing evidentiary standards or imposing “new costs or requirements on drug developers,” just removing language “that could suggest that animal testing is the only acceptable way to generate safety information for regulatory decisions in products intended for human use.”
It’s also launching a database for specific uses of “New Approach Methodologies” (NAMs) such as “AI-powered models, human organ-on-a-chip systems, and real-world data,” starting with 25 examples drawn from already public FDA review materials.
The change “gives scientists and drug developers greater flexibility to use the testing approach that best addresses their scientific question” without trying to replace “one rigid approach with another,” acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs Kyle Diamantas said.
The Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Wellness Action, sibling 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) nonprofits, cheered the FDA for finally removing “archaic” language that “contradicted the plain language” of the nearly four-year-old FDA Modernization Act 2.0. 
“This is a long-delayed but highly consequential move by FDA to bring drug-development regulations into the 21st century,” the organizations’ president Wayne Pacelle said. It shows “the remarkable convergence taking place towards streamlining scientific discovery, regulatory policy and federal law,” Center for a Humane Economy senior scientific advisor Zaher Nahle said.
Congress passed “3.0” legislation requiring such changes in jargon, the Senate last December and the House only two months ago, though the chambers’ bills aren’t reconciled yet.
The National Institutes of Health also announced “five major initiatives” Monday to expand “human-based technologies as the future of preclinical science, aiming to make research faster, more predictive, and more directly relevant to human health” and reducing animal testing “whenever feasible.”
It’s dedicating $88 million to 10 construction projects for NAM-focused “biomedical infrastructure” nationwide through a program historically known for further developing animal research models, and developing a “state-of-the-art laboratory” at the NIH Clinical Center to integrate “standardized human organoid models, robotics, AI, and advanced data capabilities to enable experiments on reproducible human biological systems.”
The agency is also beefing up its review grants for scientific experts on human-based research and asking the scientific community how feasible it is to track and report how many “vertebrate animals” it tests each year for the purpose of reducing their use.
NIH is taking advantage of new tools and technologies that provide “an unprecedented opportunity to advance research methodologies that more closely reflect human biology,” NIH Deputy Director for Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives Nicole Kleinstreuer said.
“This is tremendous progress toward a future where animals are no longer the default in biomedical research” and which “sets an example for research institutions around the world,” Humane World Action Fund vice president of federal affairs Tracie Letterman said. 
“Investment in technologies that don’t rely on animals, stronger expertise in peer review, and greater transparency about animal experiments can help create the conditions for scientists to develop and apply non-animal alternatives that are more directly relevant to human biology,” said Kathleen Conlee, vice president of animal research issues at Humane World for Animals, the sibling to Human World Action Fund.

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