Urge your Congress members to cosponsor the bipartisan Preventing Unkind and Painful Procedures and Experiments on Respected Species (PUPPERS) Act (H.R. 3197)
Action Alert from All-Creatures.org

FROM

White Coat Waste Project
November 2018

SEE UPDATED ALERT - FEBRUARY 16, 2019

ACTION

Urge your Congress members to cosponsor the bipartisan Preventing Unkind and Painful Procedures and Experiments on Respected Species (PUPPERS) Act (H.R. 3197) to permanently stop taxpayers' money from being spent on the VA's wasteful and cruel dog experiments.

laboratory beagles

White Coat Waste Project has exposed how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been using your tax dollars to conduct wasteful and painful experiments on dogs. VA's experiments include giving 6-month-old hound puppies heart attacks, drilling into beagles' skulls, and severing "friendly" dogs' spinal cords. The VA is the only agency conducting "maximum pain" experiments on dogs in which significant pain is unrelieved.

Following our campaigning, Congress has enacted legislation to cut funding for the VA's dog experiments in 2018 and 2019, but we need to make this de-fund permanent.

GO HERE to contact your Congressional representatives.

INFORMATION

In just 18 months, White Coat Waste Project’s campaign to end painful taxpayer-funded dog experimentation at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has made historic progress. Congress has twice enacted legislation restricting VA’s dog testing. Virginia enacted the nation’s first state law banning spending on “maximum pain” dog and cat experiments. The VA implemented the federal government’s first lab animal adoption policy. And the bipartisan PUPPERS Act to permanently defund the VA’s most painful dog testing has nearly 100 cosponsors.

Now, we’re seeing the positive impacts of this effort, and the VA’s shameful efforts to prevent more progress.

In a recent letter to U.S. Representatives Dave Brat (R-VA) and Dina Titus (D-NV), VA Secretary Robert Wilkie outlines progress to date:

  • No new VA dog testing has been initiated since July 2017, when the U.S. House voted unanimously to de-fund the practice
  • VA discontinued two active dog testing projects and canceled plans for two other invasive experiments
  • VA spending on dog testing in 2018 is significantly lower than what was budgeted
  • Several dogs have been adopted out of VA labs

fatal dog experiments

As first reported by USA Today, Secretary Wilkie’s letter also includes troubling information about several existing VA dog testing projects in Richmond, Cleveland and Milwaukee that have been allowed to continue under questionable circumstances. According to USA Today, the VA did not properly review and approve the projects, as is required by federal law.

Former VA Secretary David Shulkin, veterans, and lawmakers immediately condemned the VA:

PUPPERS Act

Thank you for everything you do for animals!

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