By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
On a cold winter morning in January 1966, state troopers with a search warrant raided the property of an animal dealer in White Hall, Maryland. There, they found scores of dogs in distress, chained to boxes and barrels, jammed into wire pens and chicken crates, mired in their own waste, with no shelter from the elements or the numbing temperatures.
WASHINGTON (August 20, 2026)—Humane World Action Fund, formerly called Humane Society Legislation Fund, the nation’s leading political animal advocacy organization, released the following statement regarding Senate candidate Ken Paxton’s animal welfare record as a state legislator and attorney general.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
The writing is on the wall at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. A new day is dawning, and with the U.S. government dramatically shifting its funding and strategic emphasis to human-based research, the ONPRC wants to move in the same direction.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
Every day in the U.S., beagles—known for their calm, gentle demeanor—are bred for use as compliant test subjects in the commercial testing industry. Most of the puppies are born just to be a living body on which chemicals can be tested and the results observed. The vast majority of these dogs will never feel grass beneath their paws or play with a ball. Instead, they will live and die in laboratories.
8/6/26 update: The Senate Agriculture Committee did not pass a Farm Bill today, leaving the controversial Save Our Bacon Act out of the legislation as negotiations continue.
In January 2026, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommitted to ending tests on mammals by 2035.
There’s exciting news regarding our work to get animals out of laboratories and keep them out. The House Appropriations Committee has advanced its Fiscal Year 2027 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill on a 34–28 vote, and the report language that accompanies the package promises to advance many of our priorities.
The report’s highlights include:
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
For the 190 million animals used in testing and research each year around the world, the shift to non-animal methods cannot come soon enough.
We have always been determined to see a day when elected officials, heads of major government agencies, and the leaders of scientific institutions and corporations came around to the position we have held for a long time:
That we need not rely on animals to gauge the safety of chemical and pesticide products.
