On April 1, the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce government financing arrived in Morganitown, and. This morning, hundreds of employees at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health were notified that they are terminated and they will lose access to the building.
She left behind more than 900 laboratory animals. The institute eventually managed to move to about two-thirds-in the first place mice, as well as a handful of mice-sent to university laboratories, according to recently completed facility employees. However, the remaining 300 animals were eliminated last week.
Over the past few months, the Trump administration has been aimed at the American Research Corporation, which led to the release of degrees of federal scientists, the abolition of active research and the suggestion of fundamental discounts for financing that helps laboratories keep their lamps.
These moves, which have left many scientists out of work and disrupted clinical research, have profound repercussions for laboratory animals that work as a basis for most biomedical research in the country.
“There will be a lot of animals that will be sacrificed-Paul Locke, an animal law expert in the laboratory and the use of non-traded alternatives in research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg for Public Health, said Paul Locke, a laboratory law expert, said Paul Locke, an animal law expert in the laboratory and the use of non-circulating alternatives in research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg for Public Health, said,” There will be a lot of animals that will be sacrificed-the killing of Paul Locke, an animal law expert in the laboratory and the use of non-circulating alternatives in research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg for Public Health, said Paul Locke, an expert in animal law and the use of non-automatic alternatives in research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg College for Public Health.
Experts said that it is difficult to predict the end, partly, because many of the administration’s actions are involved in legal battles. Animal research shrouded in secret. There are no final numbers about the number of animals that live in the United States laboratories.
Many scientists were hesitant to speak frankly about what might become about their laboratory animals, for fear of a violent reaction from animal rights activists or revenge against their employers or the Trump administration. Dozens of interview requests have not been answered to animal research facilities and researchers.
“I think they are not talking about it because it is a position, for them, just a procession of terror,” said Dr. Locke. “If they will keep animals, it will be very expensive. If they are sacrificing animals, this will cause general anger.”
Some animal rights activists chant this disorder, even if it means compassionate animals. But many researchers said that they were destroyed because of what they considered the worst in the two worlds: the death of many animals without any gains in scientific knowledge.
“We do not take the use of animals lightly,” said Kyle Mandler, a pulmonary toxin who was among the recently ended scientists from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which is part of the centers of control and prevention control. At that time, it was in the middle of a study on the dangerous dust produced in the manufacture of certain building materials. About twenty mice were eliminated last week – the study is incomplete, unacceptable data.
He said: “The fact that their lives and their sacrifices will be just a complete waste are equal parts of depression and anger.”
The Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services did not directly answer questions about the fate of Morganitown animals. But in an e -mail statement, an unveiled HHS official said that the changes in NIOSH were part of a “broader reorganization”, as multiple programs were combined into the new management of America’s health.
“Employment and operational modifications occur in stages,” the statement said. “Animal care remains active, and HHS is committed to maintaining compliance with all federal animal care standards during this transition.”
Sudden
In recent years, many countries, including the United States, I started moving away Animal research, which is expensive and morally enforced and not always a good indication of what may happen in humans. This month, the US Food and Drug Administration announced this I planned to “gradually get rid” animal test For certain types of medications and enhancing alternative use, such as organs or “chips”, 3D models for human organs made of cells planted with the laboratory.
Experts agree that these emerging techniques carry a tremendous promise. But some say that at least, at least, laboratory animals remain a decisive part of biomedical research and that certain types of data cannot be collected in any other way.
“We want to get ourselves out of this work,” said Naomi Charlamebakis, Director of Scientific Policy and Communications in the Americans for medical progress, a non -profit organization that defends the continuous use of animals in biomedical research. “But we are not there yet.”
Animal research in the laboratory, which takes years of planning and behavior, requires a predictable financing, veterinarians and experienced technicians to provide daily care. The move by the Trump administration threw all this question.
At the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Morgantown, for example, sudden fines initially included animal care. “But they resisted and said that they did not leave while the animals were in the facility,” said a former laboratory technician, who asked not to recognize future employment options.
After the Trump administration began freezing financing to Harvard University this month, researchers who have developed the new tuberculosis vaccine faced the possibility of having to get rid of the Reesos Meccan devices. The study, and the monkeys spared only after a special donor intervention to provide financing.
Some animals in closed projects can be transferred to laboratories or other institutions, but others may have already received experimental treatments or have been exposed to pathogens or toxins. Laboratory animals, many of which are raised to display some healthy behaviors or weaknesses, are not wild and cannot be launched simply. Experts said the sudden boom of excess laboratory animals may be more than animal reserves in the country that could absorb it.
Ann Linder, the assistant director of the Harvard Law and Policy Program at Harvard Law Faculty, is concerned that the fate of many laboratory animals will return to the “whims and moods” individual researchers and laboratory staff.
She said in an email: “Without supervision, some of these decisions will be poor, and many will be of harsh necessity, without regard to the well -being of the animals concerned.”
Cost reduction
Several researchers said they are also concerned about the efforts of the National Institutes of Health to sharply reduce funding for “indirect costs” associated with scientific research, including those related to preserving animal care facilities.
Federal judge The National Institutes of Health prevented From placing these financing hats in place, but the agency resumed. If the policy persists, it may be devastating for institutions that are taking place with non -human primates, which are long -term and expensive to take care of them.
The Washington National Research Center, based at the University of Washington, includes more than 800 inhumane presidents. Dibora Fuller, director of the center, said that the maximum indirect financing will cost the center about $ 5 million a year, forcing it to reduce its colony.
“The entire infrastructure we have built can destroy,” she said.
She added that if this happens, the center will do its best to find new homes for its animals. But other research centers will face the same challenges, and the main reserves may not be able to absorb the flow.
As a last resort, the majority may need to get rid of the merciful. “It is a scenario of worst cases,” said Sally Thompson Ertani, assistant deputy assistant at the university’s research office. “Although none of us loves to think about it or should talk about it, this may happen.”
For some animal rights activists, reducing the size of the Federal Animal Research Corporation is to celebrate it. “For many of these animals, getting rid of berries before trying is the best better scenario,” said Justin Godman, the first vice president of the White Coat Wasee project, a non -profit organization calling for the end of animal research funded by federal organizations. (The organization prefers to see laboratory animals placed in new homes.
Delcianna Winders, who runs the Institute of Animal and Policy Law of Fairmont to the Law and the College of Graduate Studies, said it hopes that these cuts will be paid at the end of the main national centers. But she said that she was concerned that discounts and demobilization in the US Department of Agriculture, which imposes the federal animal care law, would weaken the country’s “already supervision” of animal well -being in the country.
Dr. Locke hopes that this crisis will be a “call to wake up” for the nation to move further towards alternatives to animal research. But this transition should happen in a deliberate way.
“I don’t think it is acceptable to execute millions of animals from research.” “I don’t think this is socially acceptable. I don’t think it is scientifically acceptable, and I think we need to realize that this is a possible result.”
