Obama to Set Groundbreaking Limit on Animal Testing

A new piece of legislation is on its way toward providing unprecedented protections for animals. A provision to the Toxic Substances Control Act—which would reduce the use of animals in laboratory experiments to test the safety of chemical-laden products—has been passed by the House of Representatives and is up for review by President Obama. The provision, drafted by vegan Senator Cory Booker, would also urge the Environmental Protection Agency to develop and use whenever possible non-animal alternatives. “This is the first signal from Congress that it is a priority to move away from animal testing,” Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said. The news comes during an international push away from animal use in the medical and market sectors, as just last month, animals used for training at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine was recently made no longer mandatory and cosmetic testing in Brazil’s second largest state was banned completely.