In February 2017, USDA shuttered the Animal Care Information System without any warning.This week, after Congress required that USDA restore the database, most of it is back! Unfortunately, some records are still missing, so we will remain vigilant to make sure the agency does not backslide. But this is huge progress.
Thanks to your activism, the hard
work of the Physicians Committee, and the combined effort of many
like-minded organizations, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has
finally restored its online animal welfare database—more than three years
after abruptly shutting it down!
You may remember that in February 2017, USDA shuttered the Animal Care
Information System without any warning. This is the online database that
included inspection reports of research facilities and other institutions
regulated under the Animal Welfare Act. The database also included research
facilities' annual reports, which allowed the public to see the number and
species of Animal Welfare Act-covered animals used at those facilities. It
became clear that USDA removed the information to appease the companies it
regulates by making sure that the public did not know what those companies
were doing. USDA now calls those regulated companies, which include research
facilities and puppy mills, “customers,” as if the agency exists to serve
them.
Immediately after the shutdown, the Physicians Committee partnered with
other concerned organizations to file a lawsuit in federal court to reverse
the USDA's action. The Physicians Committee also worked with a large
coalition of organizations to lobby lawmakers on Capitol Hill and hosted a
June 2017 briefing for members of Congress and their staff.
Although USDA restored many documents in August 2017, the database had
greatly changed. For example, USDA stopped publicly posting records related
to enforcement and instead planned to post "statistical summaries each
calendar quarter." Considering the agency's woeful enforcement of the Animal
Welfare Act, that was troubling news. You and thousands of others wrote to
the agency to demand full transparency.
Finally, this week, after Congress required that USDA restore the database,
most of it is back! Unfortunately, some records are still missing, so we
will remain vigilant to make sure the agency does not backslide. But this is
huge progress.
You helped make this possible! Thank you for your continued support!
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