Lab Animals
The Gregory J. Reiter Memorial Fund has supported multiple organizations dedicated to ending the abuse of animals for research.
The Greg Fund has provided annual grants to PETA’s Cruelty Investigations Department, whose undercover investigation and work with Virginia and U.S. legislators and officials led to 2022 closure of research breeding facility Envigo and release of thousands of surviving dogs for adoption; and to a grand jury investigation of the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The Fund has also contributed to PETA's Science, Technology, and Innovation Fund for work including its Research Modernization Deal.
In addition, the Greg Fund currently supports the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), which has replaced animal use with simulators in all U.S. and Canadian medical schools; won passage of the 2018 California Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act; and secured passage of the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act requiring chemical companies and the Environmental Protection Agency to replace and reduce animal tests.
In September 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made an historic decision to eliminate all chemical testing on mammals by 2035, and to immediately begin the transition to more modern and effective methods.
PETA and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine -- as well as the White Coat Waste Project, a previous Greg Fund grantee -- had all campaigned for this result, and all three were represented at the news conference where EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the plan.
In January 2018, White Coat Waste Project successfully ended a deadly FDA nicotine addiction experiment on squirrel monkeys.
The Greg Fund joined a White Coat Waste coalition in this campaign, along with Dr. Jane Goodall and a bipartisan group of U.S. Congresspeople.
In November 2018, the 26 monkeys who survived the experiment -- including one named Gregory -- moved to freedom at Florida Jungle Friends Primate Sanctuary. The story was covered by CNN and the New York Times, among others.