Happening Now: Partying PETA ‘Dinosaurs’ Celebrate New NIH Director

For Immediate Release:
December 9, 2021

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

Today, President Joe Biden announced that Dr. Lawrence Tabak will serve as the interim director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—so PETA’s “dinosaurs” are throwing a party in front of the White House right now, complete with party hats, sparklers, and signs proclaiming, “Thank You, Pres. Biden, for Not Appointing an NIH Dinosaur!”

When:    Today, Thursday, December 9, now until 5 p.m.

Where:    The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C.

PETA’s “dinosaurs” have been following the president to urge him to take NIH out of the scientific Stone Age by choosing a visionary new leader who will end the agency’s funding of animal tests and instead implement state-of-the-art, animal-free research methods. Under the leadership of Dr. Tabak’s predecessor, Francis Collins, NIH squandered nearly half its budget on animal experiments every year, even though 95% of new drugs that test safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials. The Research Modernization Deal, developed by PETA scientists, provides a strategy for phasing out these studies.

“NIH desperately needs a fresh new thinker who will embrace cutting-edge research over the same old failing animal experiments,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is celebrating Dr. Tabak’s appointment as an indication that the president understands the need to bring U.S. science into the 21^st century.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information about PETA, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.