Animal Welfare Act
Explanation of the Animal Welfare Act
As untested products caused increasing casualty rates among consumers, the US government began enforcing testing and quality control before products hit the market. However, this came at the cost of alarmingly high rates of animal experimentation, which was met with fierce criticism. In response, the government introduced the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act (LAWA) in 1966, more commonly known as the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) in recent times.
The LAWA, under the control of the Department of Agriculture, covered fewer topics than the AWA today. It established permit requirements to buy or sell animals for dealers and research facilities and regulated the number of animals entering the supply chain. At the time, the government prioritized regulations for the kidnapping and sale of animals over their well-being. Despite animal welfare not being the law’s focus, the LAWA did require research facilities to limit the “acceptable imposition of pain during research.” Overall, the LAWA set significant precedents for future legislation to protect animals as permits and strict regulation expanded government power in animal usage.
Through a series of amendments from 1970 through 1990, the LAWA was rebranded to the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and modified to include more policies that placed animal welfare as the top concern. The AWA is more inclusive, extending its policies to all warm-blooded animals and those used in exhibitions (e.g., art galleries, performances, etc.). Additionally, it requires research facilities to file annual reports and specify what is considered “adequate veterinary care,” including the appropriate usage of chemicals such as anesthetics, tranquilizers, and analgesics. Maximal fines were also increased from $2500 to $10,000 for misconduct. While the AWA regulates a wide range of animal-related activities including their sale, transportation, and usage, its paramount purpose is to ensure animal welfare, serving as the only law that regulates animal experimentation to date.
Criticism of the Animal Welfare Act
Despite its promises to ensure animal well-being, the AWA has faced mass criticism for its failure to truly protect animals—particularly through the addition of recent amendments in the 2000s that loosened regulations. For example, the Farm Bill, passed in 2002, amended the AWA to exclude birds, rats, and mice from the definition of “animal.” This change proves crucial considering that, of all animals, rats and mice are most frequently used for lab experiments, making up approximately 95% of all laboratory animals as estimated in 2017. By classifying mice and rats as “not animals,” research facilities can report substantially lower levels of experimentation and avoid many safety regulations. Reports from 2021 estimate around 700,000 animals are used in research, but the number skyrockets to 14 million when including rats and mice. The inaccurate reports of animal data palliate the continuously high rates of animal testing.
In 2017, APHIS shut down its Animal Welfare Database, which included crucial information on all inspection reports and annual reports from research facilities. APHIS states that the primary reason for this decision was to be “responsive to our stakeholders’ informational needs, and maintaining the privacy rights of individuals.” Although the identities of these stakeholders remain unknown, speculations suggest that the database was closed to hide unethical experiments conducted by research facilities.
In addition, programs promoting ethical animal experimentation relied on evidence from the Animal Welfare Database to take legal action, and losing this information has made it nearly impossible to hold problematic research facilities accountable. For example, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an organization known for identifying research malpractice, utilized the database to halt chimpanzee experiments in the US, end the use of cats for pediatrics training in Virginia, and prevent NASA from irradiating squirrel monkeys—all in 2010. However, since the shutdown of the Animal Welfare Database, the organization’s efforts have abruptly stopped.
The federal government’s inability to fully enforce the AWA further exacerbates its issues. For example, in the field of entertainment, the AWA not only fails to protect animals from constant abuse in circuses but also hinders the passage of other laws designed to protect them. Circuses are categorized as “exhibitionism” and would thus have to abide by the AWA’s limitations on the appropriate usage of pain. Currently, the amount of physical abuse used during animal training is a discernible violation of the law, yet the government has responded with nothing but negligence towards this issue. In puppy mills (commercial breeding factories), the AWA does not set high standards regarding the dogs' care. Instead, AWA legalizes placing dogs in small wire-lined cages stacked on top of one another for the entirety of their lives. Despite the already low standards set by the AWA, the government still fails to punish breeders that violate these bare minimum conditions.
All in all, it is crucial to acknowledge the progress made towards animal welfare since 1966. However, to truly honor the spirit of the AWA, America needs to address its current shortcomings, ensuring the animals are not just legally protected but are also provided with safe and humane care. We must continue to fight for more robust protections and accountability to secure a future where all animals receive the care and respect they deserve.
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https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/animal-welfare-act-fails-prevent-needless-animal-use-suffering-death.
https://www.animallaw.info/article/brief-summary-us-animal-welfare-act
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358977/
https://www.usp.org/sites/default/files/fda-exhibit/legislation/1938.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3123518/
https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.2420
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9710398/
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3859