EPA to launch program that lets people adopt its lab animals amid Trump cuts | Trump administration
The American environmental protection agency is launching a new program to adopt some of its 20,000 laboratory animals following the Trump administration plans to considerably reduce the regulator’s search branch.
Public employees for non -profit environmental responsibility (PEER) have obtained and revealed an EPA document announcing the adoption program. The document has announced adoptions for zebra fish and rats of an EPA laboratory in North Carolina.
He declares: “Adopt love. Save a life. Our adoption program has been approved. Do you want to adopt? “
This decision is part of the benefits of large EPA cuts targeting the toxicological and others research work which is largely carried out by the agency’s research and development office.
The office is replaced by an “applied science office and environmental solutions”, which Peer wrote in a press release, focuses on short -term projects limited to “functions required by law” instead of long -term research.
This decision is a “poorly advised scientific auto-lobotomy,” said Kyla Bennett, director of scientific policies at Peer and former EPA lawyer.
“Instead of developing a strategic plan to meet its scientific needs, Trump’s EPA has decided to largely abandon scientific research, except when it is specifically mandated by law, thus embracing a short -term savings part of its long -term detriment,” said Bennett.
The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The Trump administration aims to eliminate at least 1,000 EPA scientists, about three -quarters of the staff of the Research and Development Office. The plan, however, is pending while a legal battle takes place.
The agency uses rabbits, mice, rats and other animals mainly to test the safety of chemicals and other environmental pollutants.
During Trump’s first term, EPA announced a plan to reduce animal tests by 30% by 2025 and end it at 2035. The EPA Biden was niseed, and the agency now says that it will not be linked by deadlines and follows “the best available science,” said Bennett.
Researchers use zebra fish to test the toxic effects of certain chemicals and pollutants due to the “many similarities between metabolism and the physiological structures of zebra fish and humans, and the structure of the nervous system, the function of hemato-encephalic barrier and the social behavior of zebra”, according to a peer-revised study.
Recent research on the toxic effects of current plastic chemicals and how they can disrupt the circadian rhythm of the man used zebra fish in research.
The reduction of animal tests “will make EPA even more dependent on the search for chemical companies, which is often formulated to hide, rather than identifying, potential health and environmental risks,” said Bennett.
She added that elimination of animal research would make it more difficult for the agency to assess the toxicological effect of complex chemicals with several thousand variations, such as PFA. This would also kill research that rely on laboratory animals to understand the long -term effects of pollutants, such as particles.
“EPA abandons its status as a leading scientific organization,” said Bennett.
