PETA Statement: Gov. Youngkin Signs Animal Testing Transparency Bills

For Immediate Release:
April 9, 2024

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Richmond, Va. –

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch regarding Senate Bill 411 and House Bill 580, introduced by Sen. Jennifer Boysko and Del. Shelly Simonds, respectively, and now signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The legislation will create a task force to identify deficiencies and make recommendations about transparency at publicly funded animal testing facilities in Virginia. The task force will examine facilities’ violations of federal regulations as well as details about how—and how many—animals are experimented on, including not only species protected by the federal Animal Welfare Act, such as dogs, cats, and primates, but also those not covered, including birds, rats, and mice.

Animal testing has been on legislators’ radar since PETA and Sen. Jennifer Boysko first joined forces in 2020 to expose Envigo. Now, just four years later, Envigo’s dog prison is closed and Virginia has made headlines for being a leader on animal welfare legislation. PETA looks forward to working with universities, transparency experts, and other stakeholders to identify deficiencies and make recommendations that will ultimately serve not only the animals, from mice to monkeys, who spend their entire existence caged and subjected to pain and distress, but also Virginia taxpayers, whose dollars fund the purchase and breeding of as well as experimentation on millions of animals annually.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.