Modernizing Research
An estimated 115 million animals suffer and die in research worldwide each year, including 25 million in the US. Precise US numbers are unknown because researchers are not required to report numbers of rats, mice, and birds -- the majority of animals they use. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest US research funder, spends more than half its $45 billion annual budget on animal studies, while also acknowledging that the failure rate of these studies – approximately 90% by multiple measures -- is unacceptably high.
The Gregory J. Reiter Memorial Fund has supported multiple organizations working to end the use of animals for research, and to promote the use of modern technologies that can both spare animals from suffering and produce better outcomes for people.
The Greg Fund recently contributed to the clinical research program of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) -- which for more than 20 years has conducted animal-free, human-based research to save animals and people. The program, perhaps best known for groundbreaking work on type 2 diabetes, has also conducted studies on many other conditions including type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
PCRM's numerous legislative victories have included passage of the 2018 California Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act and the 2016 federal Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act requiring chemical companies and the Environmental Protection Agency to replace and reduce animal tests.
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. In June 2024, Inotiv, Envigo's parent company, was ordered to pay a record $35 million in criminal fines for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act and Clean Water Act.
The Greg Fund has made grants to PETA's Science, Technology, and Innovation Fund for work including its Research Modernization Deal -- which contributed to the US National Institutes of Health February 1, 2024 statement of commitment to promoting non-animal research.
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.