Animal Wellness Action, a national organization devoted to creating legal standards against cruelty to animals, is pleased to endorse Sen. Mike Lee in his reelection campaign. Sen. Lee recently joined Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in cosponsoring the FDA Modernization Act. That bill, which cuts through red tape by repealing a 1938 Depression-era mandate for animal testing for any drug or vaccine, passed the Senate unanimously at the end of September.
The animal-testing requirement imposes an unnecessary burden on private industry and drives up drug costs and delays delivery of important drugs to patients in need. The data reveals that animal tests are poor forecasters of the human reaction to drugs. Instead of using archaic and inaccurate tools to assess drug safety and efficacy, there are 21st-century strategies, such as organs-on-a-chip, that use human cells to gauge toxicities in experimental drugs. The legislation opens up the toolkit to allow their use.
Lee also leads the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act that would create transparency and accountability to reform the USDA’s Commodity Checkoff Programs. The USDA has long been under fire for not stewarding these dollars and allowing some agriculture trade groups to divert the dollars paid by farmers to hire their staff and to spend on lobbying campaigns that work against the interests of family farmers. Our coalition includes more than 250,000 farmers seeking to reform this “tax” on farmers that too often funds their economic their demise.
The senior senator from Utah is not in lockstep with all proposed animal welfare reforms but he’s someone whom we can talk to, is passionate about policy, and grabs the torch when it aligns with his philosophy. That why we recommend him in this year’s Senate race.