On April 1, the efforts of the Trump administration to cut the government funding arrived in Morgantown, W.Va., where federal scientists spent their days studying health and safety threats to American workers. That morning, hundreds of employees of the National Institute for occupational Safety and Health were informed that they had been closed and that they would lose access to the building.
The shoulders were more than 900 laboratory animals. In the end, the Institute managed to move about two third-thirds-proves, as well as a handful of mice-invading them to university laboratories, according to two employees of the structures that have recently been interrupted. The remaining 300 animals, however, were euthanous last week.
In recent months, the Trump administration has targeted the American Research Enterprise, shooting dozens of federal scientists, canceling active research grants and proposing drastic cuts to funding that help the laboratories to keep the lights lit.
These moves, which have left many scientists without work and interrupted clinical research, have profound branches for laboratory animals that act as a basis for most of the nation's biomedical research.
“There will be many animals that will end up being sacrificed-bubbles,” said Paul Locke, a laboratory animal law expert and the use of non-animal alternatives in research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The last toll is difficult to predict, the experts said, in part because many of the actions of the administration are involved in legal battles. Animal research is also wrapped in secrecy; There are no definitive numbers on how many animals live in US laboratories.
Many scientists were reluctant to speak openly about what could become their laboratory animals, fearing recruown by activists for animal rights or retaliation by their employers or Trump administration. Dozens of requests for interview with animal research structures and researchers remained unanswered.
“I think they are not talking about it because it is a situation that, for them, is just a parade of horrible,” said dr. Locke. “If they keep high animals, it will be enormously expensive. If they sacrifice animals, it will cause indignation of the public.”
Some activists for animal rights are encouraging the interruption, even if this means euthanizing animals. But many researchers said they were devastated by what they considered the worst of both worlds: the death of many animals without any gain in scientific knowledge.
“We do not take the slightly use of animals,” said Kyle Mandler, a pulmonary toxicologist who has been among the scientists recently completed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, part of the centers for the control and prevention of diseases. At the time, it was in the middle of a study on dangerous dust produced in the production of some building materials. About two dozens of his mice were euthanous last week: the unfinished study, the data not collected.
“The fact that their life and their sacrifice will be only a complete waste is equal parts depressing and exasperating,” he said.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not answer questions directly on the fate of the animals of Morgantown. But in a declaration via E -mail, an unnamed HHS official said that the changes to Niosh were part of a “wider realignment”, in which multiple programs were consolidated in the new administration for a healthy America.
“The staff and operational adjustments are taking place in phases,” says the declaration. “Animal care operations remain active and HHS undertakes to maintain compliance with all federal standards for animal welfare during this transition.”
Sudden stops
In recent years, many countries, including the United States, have started to move away from animal research, which is expensive, ethically frank and not always a good predictor of what could happen in man. This month, the United States Food and Drug Administration has announced that it has planned to “gradually eliminate” animal tests for some types of drugs and promote the use of alternatives, such as organoids or “organs on chips”, three -dimensional models of human organs made by cells grown in the laboratory.
Experts agree that these emerging technologies promise huge promises. But some argue that, at least for now, laboratory animals remain a critical part of biomedical research and that some types of data cannot be collected in any other way.
“We want to move away from this work,” said Naomi Charalambakis, director of scientific policy and communications of Americans for medical progress, a non -profit organization that supports the continuous use of animals in biomedical research. “But we're not entirely there yet.”
The research on laboratory animals, which often takes years to plan and conduct, requires constant and predictable funding and veterinarians and expert technicians to provide daily assistance. The moves of the Trump administration have questioned everything.
At the National Institute for occupational Safety and Health's Morgantown Facility, for example, brusche interruptions initially included animal care staff. “But they reacted and said they were not going while the animals were in the structure,” said a former laboratory technician, who asked not to be identified to preserve future work options.
After the Trump administration has started to freeze the financing in Harvard this month, researchers who develop a new vaccine against tuberculosis have faced the prospect of having to easer their macaques rhesus. The study and monkeys were spared only after a private donor intervened to provide funding.
Some animals on closed projects may be moved to other workshops or institutions, but others may have already received experimental treatments or have been exposed to pathogens or toxins. Laboratory animals, many of which are raised to show certain behaviors or vulnerability for health, are not wild and cannot be simply released. And the sudden wave of excess laboratory animals can be more than the animal sanctuaries of the nation can absorb, the experts said.
Ann Linder, associated director at the Harvard Law School law and policy program, is concerned that the fate of many laboratory animals will descend to the “whims and temperaments” of the individual researchers and laboratory employees.
“Without supervision, some of these decisions will be poor and many will be made out of insensitive necessity, without regard to the well -being of the animals in question,” he said in one and -mail.
Cost cutting
Many researchers said they were also concerned about the efforts of the National Institutes of Health to clearly limit funding for the “indirect costs” associated with scientific research, including those relating to the maintenance of animal care structures.
A federal judge prohibited the Nih to implement these financing limits, but the agency appealed. If politics proceeds, it could be devastating for institutions that do research with non -human primates, which are long -lasting and expensive to take care.
The Washington National Primate Research Center, based at the University of Washington, has over 800 non -human primates. A limit to indirect funding would cost about $ 5 million a year in the center, forcing him to resize his colony, said Deborah Fuller, director of the center.
“It could destroy the entire infrastructure we built,” he said.
If this happens, the center would make every effort to find new houses for its animals, he added. But other research centers would have faced the same challenges and primates sanctuaries may not be able to absorb the influx.
As a last resource, it may be necessary euthanized primates. “It is a worst scenario,” said Sally Thompson-Iritani, assistant vice-president at the University Research Office. “Even if none of us like to think about it or have to talk about it.”
For some activists for animal rights, the federal animal research federal company is something to celebrate. “For many of these animals, being euthanous before being tested is probably a better scenario,” said Justin Goodman, senior vice president of the White Coat Waste Project, a non -profit organization that supports the end of the research on animals financed at the federal level. (The organization would prefer to see the laboratory animals located in new houses, he observed.)
Delcianna Winders, who directs the Animal Law and Policy Institute at the Vermont Law and Graduate School, said she hopes that these cuts would write the end of the national record centers. But he said he was worried that cuts and layoffs at the Department of Agriculture of the United States, which impose the Federal Animal Welfare Act, would weaken the “lass supervision for laboratory animals.
Dr. Locke hopes that this crisis will be a “alarm” for the nation to move further towards alternatives to animal research. But that transition should take place in a weighted way, he said.
“I don't think it's good to equip millions of animals from research,” said dr. Locke. “I don't think it's socially acceptable. I don't think it's scientifically acceptable, and I think we must recognize that this is a probable result.”