![\"Macaque](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.animals24-7.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picsart_25-02-10_17-23-12-905-e1739238294138.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 WASHINGTON D.C.;\u00a0 BOSTON, Massachusetts;\u00a0 YEMASSEE, South Carolina\u2013\u2013<\/strong>With the biomedical research world focused on Donald Trump administration cuts to National Institutes of Health funding for laboratory \u201coverhead,\u201d\u00a0 a big hidden question with no obvious answers is \u201cWhat does this mean for animals?\u201d<\/p>\n Does the Trump administration funding cut mean fewer animals will be used in biomedical research and testing?<\/p>\n Or does it just mean that animals already in laboratories will get less care?<\/p>\n \u00a0The answer is very likely both<\/p>\n Reality is that no one can even make a well-educated guess until the extent and terms of the budget cuts are thrashed out in court.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Massachusetts federal district judge Angel Kelley late on February 10,\u00a0 2025 \u201ctemporarily blocked the National Institutes of Health from implementing steep cuts to how medical research grants are funded, \u00a0after 22 states sued to stop the change,\u201d\u00a0 reported Alexander Tin for CBS News.<\/p>\n Kelley,\u00a0 nominated to the federal bench by former U.S. president Joe Biden in 2021,\u00a0 halted the cuts \u201cpending further court arguments from states and the Trump administration,\u201d\u00a0 Tin said.<\/p>\n \u201cA hearing is scheduled for February 21,\u00a0 2025,”\u00a0 Tin added.<\/p>\n The National Institutes of Health,\u00a0 the major funder of biomedical research in the U.S.,\u00a0 distributed to more than 2,800 laboratories at hospitals,\u00a0 universities,\u00a0 and other institutions,\u00a0 on February 7,\u00a0 2025 promised to save the U.S. government more than $4 billion a year by capping at 15% funding for \u201cindirect costs\u201d associated with research grants.<\/p>\n This would be barely half of the recently reported average of \u00a0about 28%.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cLast year,\u201d\u00a0 explained Max Kozlov, Dan Garisto,\u00a0 and Heidi Ledford for Nature,<\/em>\u00a0 \u201cthe National Institutes of Health, \u00a0the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, awarded $26 billion directly to scientists to help them pay workers\u2019 salaries and buy equipment and reagents for their laboratories, \u00a0while $9 billion went to these overhead, \u00a0or indirect, costs, \u00a0to help institutions run their facilities and cover administrative fees.<\/p>\n \u201cThe historical average indirect costs rate has been about 40%,\u201d\u00a0 the Nature<\/em> team said,\u00a0 citing a figure significantly higher than other sources, \u00a0\u201cand goes up to 75% for some institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Expenses associated with animal acquisition,\u00a0 care,\u00a0 and use are typically split between the \u201cdirect\u201d and \u201cindirect\u201d costs of experiments.<\/p>\n For example,\u00a0 \u201cdirect\u201d costs may include purchasing mice or monkeys,\u00a0 and for whatever is done with them during a research project.<\/p>\n \u201cIndirect\u201d costs might include maintaining the laboratory,\u00a0 including paying for heating,\u00a0 lighting,\u00a0 water supply,\u00a0 clean-up,\u00a0 and biosecurity.<\/p>\n Further,\u00a0 if animals acquired and used in one experiment remain healthy enough at the end of the experiment to become part of a permanent institutional research colony,\u00a0 \u201cindirect\u201d costs of later experiments using those animals,\u00a0 or their offspring,\u00a0 might include the animals\u2019 care,\u00a0 feeding,\u00a0 veterinary care,\u00a0 and other upkeep expenses until they are used again in another funded project.<\/p>\n Matthew J. Memoli, M.D., M.S<\/strong><\/em> Acting National Institutes of Health director Matthew Memoli,\u00a0 a National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases\u00a0researcher,\u00a0 is best known for having opposed COVID-19 vaccination mandates in July 2021,\u00a0 refusing himself to be vaccinated.<\/p>\n Explained Memoli in the memo announcing the \u201cindirect\u201d funding cap,\u00a0 the cap is meant to \u00a0\u201censure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead.\u201d<\/p>\n But what Memoli dismissed as \u201cadministrative overhead\u201d is life itself to tens of thousands of animals in research colonies,\u00a0 many of them not currently being used in experiments,\u00a0 who rather than being retired from laboratory use are likely to just be killed if the budget cuts go through.<\/p>\n Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIndirect\u201d research costs \u201chave risen steadily since the 1960s,\u201d\u00a0 the Nature <\/em>team explained,\u00a0 \u201cin part because of an increasing number of regulations governing laboratory research and how federal funds are spent,\u00a0 including \u201cto protect animal welfare.\u201d<\/p>\n Susan Collins,\u00a0 a Republican U.S. Senator from Maine,\u00a0 told media that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominated by Donald Trump to head the Department of Health & Human Services,\u00a0 including the National Institutes of Health,\u00a0 may undo the cuts announced by Memoli.<\/p>\n The U.S. Senate is expected to vote by February 13,\u00a0 2025 on whether to confirm Kennedy, \u00a0whose nomination has been controversial primarily because of his general opposition to vaccinations.<\/p>\n Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also an advocate of raw milk,\u00a0 a leading vector for both viral and bacterial infections in humans.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n U.S. laboratories annually use about 110 million of the estimated 192 million rodents,\u00a0 mostly mice,\u00a0 used in labs worldwide, \u00a0according to Cruelty Free International,\u00a0 along with more than 700,000 animals of species tracked under the Animal Welfare Act,\u00a0 among them about 72,000 nonhuman primates,\u00a0 45,000 dogs,\u00a0 and 12,600 cats.<\/p>\n The toll also includes about 14 million fish and birds,\u00a0 who along with rats and mice are not tracked.<\/p>\n Private sector funding for laboratory animal use is extensive but undocumented.\u00a0 Almost all funding for laboratory animal use that can be documented comes through the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n But a reduction of animal use in experiments appears to be as likely to come through legislation specifically targeting animal use as through budget cuts that do not change animal testing mandates.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cVery quick out of the gate in the new 119th Congress, \u00a0a bipartisan group of eight lawmakers \u2014 led by U.S. Senators Cory Booker, \u00a0Eric Schmitt, \u00a0and Rand Paul,\u201d\u00a0 a Democrat and two Republicans\u2014 have reintroduced the FDA Modernization 3.0,\u201d\u00a0 exulted Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle on February 2,\u00a0 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the same band of lawmakers,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle said, \u00a0\u201cwith a commitment to reform animal testing who worked to pass the same bill in the Senate\u201d in the 118th Congress.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle continued, \u00a0\u201cleaders of the U.S. House didn\u2019t pass that Senate measure,\u00a0 even though the House bill had deep and broad bipartisan support.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt was just more than two years ago,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle recalled, \u00a0\u201cthat Senators Paul and Booker led the effort to pass the Food & Drug Administration Modernization Act 2.0 to eliminate an animal-testing mandate for all new development of pharmaceutical drugs \u2014 accounting for perhaps 75% of all animal testing.\u201d<\/p>\n However,\u00a0 Pacelle charged earlier,\u00a0 in November 2024,\u00a0 \u201cThe Food & Drug Administration is not implementing the new law, \u00a0as Congress demanded of it. \u00a0The FDA has not, \u00a0more to the point, lifted a finger to update its regulations to allow for the use of 21st-century animal-free methods to screen new drugs,\u201d\u00a0 leading to the introduction of the Food & Drug Administration Modernization Act 3.0.<\/p>\n Pacelle blamed Food & Drug Administration intransigence on \u201ccompanies that profit from selling animals to laboratories, \u00a0desperately clinging to their lucrative business. \u00a0Charles River Laboratories and Alpha Genesis, \u00a0to name two companies in this space,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle charged, \u00a0\u201cwant to keep selling animals to labs even if the work does little good for patients in need.\u201d<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the time,\u00a0 43 rhesus macaques had just escaped from an Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee,\u00a0 South Carolina.\u00a0 The last of the macaques were reportedly recaptured on January 25,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 having never actually left a wooded buffer zone surrounding their housing.<\/p>\n (See Behind the Alpha Genesis monkey \u201cgreat escape\u201d & recaptures.)<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n While those rhesus macaques were at large,\u00a0 reported Karl Puckett for the Island Packet<\/em> on February 5,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 another 22 rhesus macaques died at the Alpha Genesis facility in November 2024.<\/p>\n This led to Alpha Genesis receiving a USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service [APHIS] citation for an alleged critical violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act.<\/p>\n Wrote Puckett,\u00a0 \u201cIn a report on the incident, \u00a0the USDA said the monkeys appeared to have died from carbon monoxide exposure.\u00a0 A heating unit had been placed inside of an interior field cage.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this time,\u201d\u00a0 Puckett added,\u00a0 \u201cAPHIS does not have an open investigation for Alpha Genesis, \u00a0spokesman R. Andre Bell said.\u201d<\/p>\n Beth & Merritt Clifton with friends.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Alleges People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,\u00a0 \u201cDespite receiving $19 million in contracts from the National Institutes of Health, Alpha Genesis has\u00a0repeatedly failed to meet even the most basic animal welfare standards.\u201d<\/p>\n The post What NIH “indirect costs” budget cuts may mean for laboratory animals<\/a> appeared first on Animals 24-7<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Beth Clifton collage) NIH budget cuts might mean fewer animals used\u2013\u2013or just worse care \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 WASHINGTON D.C.;\u00a0 BOSTON, Massachusetts;\u00a0 YEMASSEE, South Carolina\u2013\u2013With the biomedical research world focused on Donald Trump administration cuts to National Institutes of Health funding for laboratory \u201coverhead,\u201d\u00a0 a big hidden question with no obvious answers is \u201cWhat does this mean for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":83256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12022],"tags":[1683,4995,13594,11339,18699,22742,41397],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-83255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activist","tag-animals","tag-budget","tag-costs","tag-cuts","tag-indirect","tag-laboratory","tag-nih"],"yoast_head":"\nNIH budget cuts might mean fewer animals used\u2013\u2013or just worse care<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nJudge blocks cuts\u2013\u2013temporarily,\u00a0 anyhow<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n$9 billion of NIH funding went for “indirect” costs<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat’s the difference?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nAnimal care is not “administrative overhead”<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRobert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n110 million animals per year<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nFDA Modernization 3.0<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n“The FDA is not implementing the law”<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nAlpha Genesis<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nPlease donate to support our work:<\/strong><\/h2>\n
www.animals24-7.org\/donate\/<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n