The Trump administration is moving to restrict animal experimentation. That is, the practice of trying out new medicines, cosmetics, and other treatments on animals before trying them on humans.
The Center for Disease Control is reportedly putting an end to research involving monkeys and other primates in projects that it conducts or sponsors. But Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is said to want to go much further.
The left-leaning Vox expresses surprise that conservatives want to protect animals:
Over the past decade, it’s been fascinating to see the animal rights movement — which is mostly comprised of left-leaning activists — reckon with the fact that an administration they largely oppose has taken some actions to help animals. Especially on the animal experimentation issue, it’s led to a “diverse, sometimes-uneasy coalition of animal welfare advocates, science reformers, and far-right political figures,” as journalist Rachel Fobar put it for Vox last year. But that coalition, with all its contradictions and disagreements, represents what little hope there is to prevent animal cruelty at the federal level.
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