Funding and Developing Alternatives

2006 Senate Bill Stresses Importance of Alternative Tests

Every year DDAL lobbies Congress to use the appropriations process to encourage the development and use of alternatives to animal testing. For decades the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has required animal tests as the primary source for collecting data on substances that harm the environment. The Senate 2006 Interior Appropriations Bill includes the following language stressing the importance of alternative tests. It reads:

"The Committee recognizes the [EPA's] commitment to developing a Computational Toxicology program that reduces the use of animal testing. The Committee encourages EPA to implement specific plans for validating computational toxicology methods to assure compliance with the ICCVAM Authorization Act of 2000, and requests details on these validation activities be included in the Agency's annual Computational Toxicology report."

The ICCVAM it refers to is the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods. ICCVAM is responsible for approving test methods that do not use animals, and recommending them to government agencies. This process is crucial to reduce the number of, and ultimately eliminate, animals used by industry to meet the demands of federal regulators.

Congress Urges ICCVAM to Approve Non-Animal Tests

In 2005, Congress requested appropriations to approve non-animal tests in order to save animal lives. The House Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill urged the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to:

"...strengthen the resources provided for ICCVAM activities in order to ensure that new and alternative test methods used or recommended for federal regulatory agencies, and those under consideration or planned for use within the National Toxicology Program's toxicity testing project, are validated prior to their use."