Like you, the majority of Americans oppose lethal medical experiments on captive animals. That’s why perpetrators of the cruelest experiments go to great lengths to hide what they’re doing to animals with your tax dollars.

Don’t you have a right to know?

That’s a question John Moss, Congressman from California, tried to answer 70 years ago. Concerned about secrecy related to the Vietnam war, Moss began pushing for a new law that would give any person the ability to get their hands on government agency records on any topic without explanation or justification.

11 years later, Moss got his wish — and you got a valuable tool for exposing cruel tests on animals — when Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA; 5 U.S.C. § 552).

Why FOIA matters to animals

FOIA was passed to ensure every one of us has a way to check against corruption and hold our government accountable. Today, all federal agencies are subject to the FOIA, and it’s one of the strongest tools we have in our fight to stop animal suffering in labs.

How we use FOIA to stop secret animal experiments

1. IDENTIFY OUR TARGETS, leveraging the power of whistleblowers who work at facilities and public reports, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
2. REQUEST RECORDS OF ABUSE, submitting FOIA requests to two main government offices within the National Institutes of Health and USDA that track abuse of animals in medical experiments.
3. DIG DEEP into the documents we receive — sometimes thousands of pages each. Where we find evidence of animal suffering, we take action.
4. SHINE A LIGHT, sharing our findings with journalists, members of Congress, and dedicated activists like you who can join grassroots protests to stop these pointless and cruel experiments right now.

Now what will you do with the truth?

While FOIA is one of the best tools we have, there are many challenges. It can sometimes take years to get a response to a FOIA request. And painstaking review, page after page, requires all of us to pitch in (Our sincere thanks to our dedicated research and legal partners).

Here’s the thing — we never expected this work to be easy. We’re fighting to reveal the truth inside industries funded by billions of dollars. And thanks to supporters like you, we’re making progress.

Just a few months ago, we uncovered that researchers are cutting out monkeys’ ovaries at a college not too far from our Boston office.

It’s all part of an experiment to artificially force menopause on monkeys. But the truth is, stealing monkeys’ ovaries is nothing like the gradual menopause experience of human beings. These tests are bad for animals and bad for science. It’s time to shut down this horror show. With your donation, you can join the effort to expose these horrific acts of cruelty and stop them once and for all.