James Cromwell for PETA, Statement for NIMH Advisory Committee Meeting

My name is James Cromwell. First, I’d like to thank the advisory council at the National Institute of Mental Health for the work you do to improve the lives of individuals suffering with mental illness.

I am here as an animal advocate and on behalf of PETA to ask that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) stop wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on irrelevant experiments on animals. I am also here on behalf of the people in this country, struggling to recover their mental health.

I am sure you feel the weight of your responsibility. Millions look to your agency, hoping for relief from the ravages of mental illness.

We need you to do better.

I know from personal experience how devastating it is to watch a loved one grapple with debilitating mental illness. A great many people are unable to access treatment or even find a treatment plan that alleviates their symptoms. Many others have given up trying to find help, because past treatments have failed them.

As this committee is well aware, most treatments for mental illness were developed 50 years ago, and they haven’t improved since. Many have grossly unpleasant side effects. And they most assuredly do not work for the vast majority who desperately need relief.

You must also be aware that much of the animal-based experimentation you are currently funding has had little-to-no relevance to human mental illness, and will assuredly never lead to new treatments and cures for humans.

Despite this, the NIMH continues to funnel millions of dollars each year into experiments that have no hope of bringing relief to people struggling with mental illness. By that, I mean experiments such as, deliberately brain-damaging monkeys, forcing mice to fight each other, and sleep-depriving prairie voles, none of which have led to human-relevant treatments. The NIMH also continues to fund projects that use the discredited “forced swim test,” where small animals are nearly drowned in inescapable beakers of water to better understand human depression.

What sense does that make?!

These experiments harm and kill tens of thousands of animals each year, and they ultimately come at the expense of immediate community and patient needs.

There are millions of people in the U.S. suffering with mental illness, right now, who need the NIMH to help them, rather than continue to waste precious resources on experiments that will not translate to humans. This misapplication of funding is irresponsible. It is in direct conflict with the Institute’s mission, to pave the way for prevention, recovery, and, ultimately, cures.

To address the mental health crisis our nation is facing, we are asking the advisory council to take immediate steps to redirect the resources being wasted on useless animal-based research, at the expense of more human-relevant research methods.

I am not alone: I have here a letter, signed by nearly 400 physicians, scientists, and mental health professionals, as well as a petition signed by more than 50,000 members of the public, all of whom implore NIMH to stop funding cruel and fruitless experiments on animals and start funding research that can truly help the people stricken with these debilitating illnesses.

In conclusion, we urge the NIMH do the following:

1. Reallocate NIMH intramural and extramural research funding to animal-free, human-relevant models.
2. Provide regulators and researchers with training in the use of human-relevant models.
3. Increase the amount of federal funding allocated to preventative measures and improving access to care.

Thank you for your consideration.