Doctors Group Applauds Commitment by RFK Jr. to Replacing Animal Experiments, Proposes Five Priorities for 2026

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A national doctors group is applauding Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, after he announced efforts to reduce and replace government-funded animal experiments. The nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is also proposing five steps Kennedy can take in 2026 to make that goal a reality and accelerate innovation.

In a Dec. 20 interview on “My View with Lara Trump,” Kennedy spoke on the ethical and scientific imperative to modernize research and testing. The interview also showed clips of Kennedy and other Trump administration senior officials holding rescue dogs. Kennedy pointed out that 100,000 monkeys are currently in U.S. laboratories, and 20,000 monkeys are imported to the country every year. Regarding the imports, Kennedy said, “we’re trying to put an end to that.” He also explained that the seven National Primate Research Centers, which receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, “have a profit motive” that “we need to challenge.”

The Physicians Committee, whose scientists regularly advise the NIH and lobby Congress on the need to modernize research and testing by replacing animals, is proposing five steps Kennedy can take in the new year to achieve his goals:

1. Halt the importation of monkeys for experimentation. Importing monkeys for laboratory use poses a serious and unnecessary public health risk. Nonhuman primates are known carriers of dangerous zoonotic pathogens—including Herpesvirus B, which can cause fatal disease in humans, and tuberculosis—and imported monkeys have been documented arriving with infections transmissible to people.
2. Cancel NIH funding to the seven National Primate Research Centers and convert the facilities to sanctuaries. As Kennedy stated, these centers are driven by profit, not public health. They are big, expensive, unproductive facilities that often serve as monkey warehouses. Kennedy stated in the Dec. 20 interview that “we’re developing sanctuaries across the country”—if true, the primate centers would be ideal facilities to convert to sanctuaries.
3. Invest in nonanimal methods [or “new approach methodologies”] and scientist training. Unlike monkeys and other animals, human-based approaches can model key features of human biology, avoiding the well-documented failures of translating findings between species. These methods, often developed from human cells, tissues, and data, include organoids, human tissue constructs, and organs-on-chips. While the NIH invested $87 million in September for the Standardized Organoid Modeling Center, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly $20 billion the agency spends each year on grants involving animals. Kennedy also stated in the Dec. 20 interview that HHS is “reeducating researchers” to be familiar with “forms of research that are much more predictive of human health outcomes.” The Physicians Committee has long been a leader in this area. Earlier this month, the organization won an NIH prize for its Summer Immersion on Innovative Approaches in Science program, a one-of-a-kind training opportunity that equips students and researchers with hands-on experience and mentoring in human-specific nonanimal methods.
4. Halt funding of foreign animal experiments. Between 2011 and 2021, the NIH awarded more than $2.2 billion to laboratories in Asia, Europe, South America, Canada, and elsewhere. But the agency has no effective way of ensuring those laboratories comply with animal welfare standards or verifying the claims made in grant applications or progress reports. In fact, foreign organizations receiving less than $750,000 a year—or about 90% of the overseas grants awarded by the NIH in the last five years—are entirely exempt from agency audits.
5. Stop funding experiments on dogs. Science is quickly moving away from dog experiments, but Secretary Kennedy can accelerate that process. In April, the FDA announced its plan to replace animals in drug testing, where dogs are often used. In May, the NIH shut down its last in-house beagle lab. In June, under Defense Secretary Hegseth, the U.S. Navy announced it will no longer use dogs or cats in research. Yet tens of thousands of dogs still die each year in tests for federal regulatory agencies or in experiments funded directly by the NIH. Wayne State University in Detroit has killed more than 300 dogs in painful heart failure experiments funded by the NIH since 1991 without producing results for patients.

“A serious commitment to human-based research methods is long overdue at HHS,” said Janine McCarthy, MPH, acting director of research policy at the Physicians Committee. “We hope Secretary Kennedy will follow through on this, and we are eager to work with him.”

To speak with Ms. McCarthy, please contact Reina Pohl at 202-527-7326 or rpohl [at] pcrm.org (rpohl[at]pcrm[dot]org).