Scientific and animal rights groups have celebrated the news revealed this weekend that the Trump administration is ordering the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop all experimentation on monkeys.
The CDC – and other agencies in the federal government’s public health apparatus, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), have for decades experimented on primates as they seek cures for diseases such as HIV and Ebola. The monkeys and other primates involved are regularly infected with devastating diseases to allow for experimentation. Animal rights activists decry the use of primates for research as unacceptable animal abuse and a threat to the general public, as multiple testing animal escapes have occurred in the past decade.
Science magazine, citing anonymous officials within the CDC, reported on Friday that an official with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) recently ordered an end to primate experiments at the CDC, reportedly resulting in the end of testing on about 200 macaques kept by the agency. The sources speaking to the magazine claimed that DOGE cited the wishes of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to end abusive animal testing in the public health complex.
“Apart from the retirement of research chimpanzees initiated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a decade ago, the move would mark the first time a U.S. agency has ended its in-house nonhuman primate program,” Science noted. The move would follow several similar announcements declaring an end to experiments on cats, dogs, and other animals at federal agencies.
The CDC has not independently confirmed the news, but did issue a statement to Science affirming the Trump administration’s policy of opposing animal abuse by scientists.
“CDC regularly evaluates its research project portfolio including non-human primate studies and strives to use non-animal research methods whenever feasible,” the statement read.
Members of the public health community lamented the move to Science, even those in other agencies, levying complaints that the animal rights move was hurting “morale.” The Science report appeared to affirm the Trump administration’s resolve on this issue, however, quoting an unknown “high-level agency source” who said, “There seems to be an explicit desire to stop nonhuman primate research in toto.”
Multiple animal rights and welfare groups celebrated the news as a major victory for the movement.
White Coat Waste, an organization dedicated to reducing government spending on gruesome animal experimentation, called the move “historic” and recalled that Secretary Kennedy had committed to working with the group on the issue.
“Secretary Kennedy has now delivered on his promise to work with White Coat Waste by completely shutting down the CDC’s primate labs, where hundreds of victims were infected with smallpox, Ebola, hepatitis, and HIV-like viruses at taxpayer expense by Dr. Fauci and other mad scientists,” Anthony Bellotti, the president and founder of the organization, said in a statement shared with Breitbart News on Monday.
“We’ve been working with Trump’s HHS to secure the same reprieve for as many CDC lab survivors as possible, which White Coat Waste has been urging the agency to do for years,” Bellotti added.
White Coat Waste shared graphic photos of the primate victims of such experimentation on their website, underlining the need to end the practice.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) described its members as popping “champagne corks” in response to the news, similarly referring to it as a “tremendous victory for animals and science.”
“PETA thanks the administration for taking this decisive, long awaited action,” the group said in a statement shared with Breitbart News on Friday, “one we’ve pressed for nonstop and that reflects what the undeniable evidence that experiments on monkeys aren’t helping humans one iota, as the four-decade failed effort to create a marketable HIV vaccine has shown.”
The group urged further action at other government agencies to defend the rights of laboratory animals, highlighting not just the abuse but the absence of concrete proof that such experiments are yielding the kind of scientific breakthroughs that could justify their continued use.
“Experiments on monkeys aren’t delivering for humans, nowhere more obvious than the four-decade failure to produce a marketable HIV vaccine,” PETA asserted. “Today, we’re celebrating a historic turning point—one that protects public health, respects endangered species, and helps propel research into a modern, animal-free future.”
“PETA is calling on the administration to build on this breakthrough: shut down the primate centers, end the monkey-import pipeline, and move every federal agency toward state-of-the-art, human-relevant science,” it said in its statement. “Today, the CDC made a historic, visionary decision—one that protects public health, respects endangered species, and recognizes that the future of research is animal-free. Now every other federally funded primate facility must be next.”
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine – an organization that describes itself as “dedicated to saving and improving human and animal lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research” – commended the Trump administration on Friday, citing the failure of such research to result in any major developments.
“Nearly 92% of drugs that show promise in animal testing—often involving primates—fail when they enter human trials because they don’t translate to human safety or efficacy,” the organization noted.
Janine McCarthy, MPH, acting director of research policy for the organization, urged the CDC to use the funding now redirected away from animal experiments to “transition to human-relevant research and to ensure that these monkeys are sent to sanctuaries for the remainder of their lives.”
The next step for many advocates supportive of the measure is to resolve the fate of the about 200 macaques still in CDC custody. According to the Science report, their “fate is unclear,” though the DOGE official tasked with shutting down the research reportedly reached out to a primate sanctuary seeking help. The head of the Peaceable Primate Sanctuary, Scott Kubisch, told the magazine that he indeed had talked to the U.S. government about taking in a large number of monkeys. For 200, Kubisch estimated, he would need about $14 million and a year to set up their new homes.
“I’m very interested in working with them,” he told Science. “It just hinges on funding.”
Some experts speaking to Science, who opposed the move, suggested that some of the animals would have to be killed as they had been infected with contagious and incurable diseases.
The CDC move follows similar proposals regarding other animal testing elsewhere in the government. In April, the FDA announced that it would begin the process of having animal testing “reduced, refined, or potentially replaced using a range of approaches, including AI-based computational models of toxicity and cell lines and organoid toxicity testing in a laboratory setting (so-called New Approach Methodologies or NAMs data).”
A month later, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, John C. Phelan, announced the Navy would no longer conduct testing on cats and dogs, “ending these inhumane practices and saving taxpayers dollars.” Additionally, CBS News reported in September that the Trump administration had canceled as much as $28 million in federal grant money for animal testing in various agencies.