RFK Jr. says he'll work with agencies to wind down animal testing

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. said this weekend that he is working across the government to end all federally funded animal testing.

"All the major agency heads are committed to ending animal experimentation," he said in an interview with Lara Trump on Fox News, referring to research being conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

Kennedy focused specifically on monkey testing, or "non-human primate testing," during his remarks. There are over 100,000 monkeys in primate testing labs around the country, with more than 20,000 more being imported every year, he said.

"We are trying to put an end to that," Kennedy said.

Earlier this year, a CBS News investigation with the South Carolina Post & Courier documented efforts to cancel nearly $28 million in federal grants for research that relied on animals. And it found that, as federal health agencies moved to phase out research on live primates, available alternatives were not yet ready for use.

It was against this backdrop that scientists at the CDC were ordered last month to phase out all their monkey research, a directive first reported in the journal Science.

"Across the Trump Administration, there is a shift to prioritize animal welfare," a health department spokesperson told CBS News in a statement. "At HHS, that includes moves to reduce unnecessary animal testing requirements and prioritizing human-based research."

Primate testing has been an integral part of medical advancement for nearly a century, and federal regulations require that most pharmaceuticals be tested on primates before they enter human clinical studies. Experiments on monkeys are credited with major medical advancements leading to the creation of Tylenol, the COVID-19 vaccine and Ozempic, among other things.

Experiments on primates make up a small portion of biomedical research overall, but Deborah Fuller, director of the NIH-funded Washington National Primate Research Center, said they are essential for developing therapies that continue to save lives.

"The majority of the biomedical interventions that we have today went through a non-human primate at some point," she said. "Shutting down a non-human primate research program, you're actually shooting yourself in the foot."

For example, 200 primates are part of CDC's ongoing research into treatments for HIV and other infectious diseases. Non-human primates are the only animals that closely model HIV infection in humans, according to Fuller.

"It is a very small slice of all of the animal research that's done. And it is only done because that is the only model that can effectively answer the question that's being addressed," she said.

But animal rights groups, who have found allies in the Trump administration, say this type of testing is outdated.

"I think it's baseless fear-mongering to suggest we need to torture animals to improve human health. All of the available evidence suggests otherwise," said Justin Goodman, senior vice president of advocacy and public policy at White Coat Waste Project. The organization

advocates to end all federally funded animal testing and works closely with the Trump administration to cut grant programs that rely on it.

Kennedy's pledge was "unprecedented," Goodman said.

"As the head of the agency that funds more animal testing than anyone else in the world, RFK's commitment to ending testing on primates and other animals is game-changing," he said. "We are optimistic — but the devil is in the details."

The details for how the federal government intends to actually end animal testing remain sparse. The fate of monkeys already in labs across the country is also unclear.

Kennedy said his agency is exploring options to retire animals to sanctuaries. But there are limited facilities equipped to take in the thousands of primates that may need continued medical monitoring. The estimated cost of transporting the animals alone could cost millions of dollars, even if there were available space for the animals in question.

"We need to make sure we have space somewhere that can take care of these animals for the rest of their lives," said Sally Thompson-Iritani, an associate professor at the University of Washington, who helps oversee the university's animal care program. "And we currently don't have an infrastructure that supports that."

"I think there's legitimately logistical issues that have to be sorted out, which is why we are anxious to hear more details from HHS about what its plans are," Goodman agreed, calling such an effort "a massive undertaking."

Moreover, some animals that have been infected with dangerous diseases like Ebola would not be able to move to a sanctuary and would likely need to be euthanized, Goodman said.

Kennedy has pushed for alternatives to animal testing, suggesting that AI and computer generated models are more accurate and efficient methods for predicting health outcomes in humans. The FDA and NiH put out updated guidelines advocating for the phasing out of live animal models in favor of alternative technologies this spring.

But researchers on the cutting edge of these alternatives don't believe that the new technologies are ready to completely replace primate models.

"I want to see us get out of the business of using animals in research," said Paul Locke in an interview with CBS News over the summer. Locke is an environmental health lawyer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and serves on the board of the school's Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing.

"The question is when. When can we do that and reach the double goal of having better science and virtually no animals? The answer is not tomorrow."