Modernizing Research
An estimated 115 million animals, including 25 million in the United States, suffer and die worldwide each year after being captured or bred and used for experimentation. 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 in experiments, and to promote the use of modern technologies that can both spare animals from suffering and produce better outcomes for people.
The Greg Fund has made annual grants supporting PETA's work to end the capture, breeding and use of animals in experimentation, and to promote human-relevant research and testing that uses advanced technologies. PETA's many successes in this area have included:
- The Research Modernization Deal, which contributed to the US National Institutes of Health February 1, 2024 statement of commitment to promoting non-animal research.
- The 2022 closure of research breeding facility Envigo, and release of thousands of surviving dogs for adoption -- followed by a June 2024 order that Inotiv, Envigo's parent company, pay a record $35 million in criminal fines for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act and Clean Water Act.
- The September 2024 decision by Charles River Labs, the world’s largest breeder of animals for use in experiments, to cancel plans for a facility that would have housed up to 43,000 primates on ecologically sensitive land next to a wildlife refuge in Brazoria County, Texas.
The Greg Fund has 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.
Since 2021, PCRM has been publicly sounding the alarm about Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company, Neuralink, for cruel brain implant experiments that resulted in the deaths of at least 12 monkeys. In September 2023, PCRM requested that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigate Musk and Neuralink for securities fraud, arguing that Musk misled investors about the safety and marketability of the company’s implant devices. In December 2024, the SEC opened an investigation into Neuralink.
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.
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.