Agency Adopts Many PETA Recommendations, Sparing Millions of Animals a Painful Death
For Immediate Release:
December 15, 2011
Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382
Washington -- Following years of pressure from PETA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has adopted a plan to incorporate measures into its testing requirements for between 6,000 and 9,700 pesticides and other chemicals in its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program that have the potential to save the lives of more than 3 million animals. PETA has long been urging the EPA to adopt these measures through multiple technical submissions and more than 25,000 e-mails and letters from PETA members to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. In a recent article published in the journal Toxicological Sciences, PETA scientists proposed a strategy for assessing endocrine disruptors that is strikingly similar to what the EPA is now planning to implement. The EPA reports that the plan, called EDSP21, will use proven, non-animal methods such as computer models and tests known as "high-throughput assays" to prioritize and screen chemicals for potential interaction with the endocrine system.
"This is a huge victory for animals, who otherwise would have suffered and died in pain while superior, non-animal testing methods went unused," says Jessica Sandler, director of PETA's Regulatory Testing Division. "We will be closely monitoring the timeline that the EPA has set for accomplishing the switch to non-animal screening methods."
In issuing EDSP21, the EPA stated that by incorporating advances in computational modeling, molecular biology, and toxicology, it "EPA prioritize and screen chemicals with greater speed, efficiency, and accuracy, while minimizing the use of laboratory animals."
The current endocrine-disruptor testing program is a two-tiered system. Under EDSP21, the near-term goal for the first-tier screening tests is to use existing data, in silico (computer simulation) models, and in vitro assays to prioritize chemicals for screening. The long-term goal (beyond five years) is to eliminate the use of animals entirely for screening purposes.
For more information, please visit PETA's blog.