Here’s a roundup of the week’s biggest news stories related to animal research — all the recent media coverage you need to know right now to be the most effective activist for animals in labs.
Channel 3000 Covers Our Ridglan Exposé; UW-Madison Responds
Rise for Animals, 8/14/2025
The University of Wisconsin-Madison just admitted to buying dogs for research from Ridglan Farms, the industrial-scale beagle breeder currently under a court-ordered animal cruelty investigation.
We at Rise for Animals and The Marty Project were first to expose UW-Madison among a list of recent purchasers supporting Ridglan. After News 3 Now/Channel 3000 covered the story, the University issued a response. See what they said — and learn why it matters: 📰 Full Story →
Ridglan Beagles at MRIGlobal: What the Records & Photos Show
Rise for Animals, 8/12/2025
In other Ridglan-related news: Disturbing USDA records we just uncovered reveal beagles who came from Ridglan Farms were left without water at MRIGlobal, a $120M contract lab funded in part by our tax dollars.
This is what animal research really looks like: 📰 Full Story →
Animal testing lab closure exposes “pointless cruelty” in women’s health research
Sabine Waldeck, personal care insights, 8/8/2025
“The US National Institutes of Health has awarded money to experimenters who subject non-human animals to tests claiming to help women’s health. PETA tells us that one such experimenter received US$900,000 to implant steel pipes into monkeys’ heads to induce stress, claiming to study its effect on the menstrual cycle. Another received US$200,000 to force pregnant rabbits to run on treadmills to examine how exercise impacts blood flow. At a Midwestern university, an experimenter was given US$1.6 million for a five-year project in which pregnant rats were exposed to inhalant drugs so the behavior of their pups could be studied.”
“‘Given the longstanding disparity in federal funding for women’s health compared to conditions that predominantly affect men, it is an insult to women everywhere that the small amount of funding available is squandered on such cruel, irrelevant, and scientifically unsound experiments,’ says [PETA head of Science Policy, Dr. Julia] Baines. ‘Wasteful projects like those at UMass-Amherst and elsewhere siphon precious taxpayer dollars away from research that could genuinely improve the lives of half the human population.’”
“‘These experiments are justifying additional exploitation and oppression of animals under the false premise that they will somehow undo past exploitation and oppression of humans — it won’t,’ . . . ‘We need increased funding for women’s health and increased inclusivity in clinical trials, but attempts to fix inadequate animal ‘models’ by simply adding more female animals are not the solution.’” 📰 Full Story →
PETA suspends cruelty-free ‘Beauty Without Bunnies’ approval due to EU testing loophole
Lynsey Barber, Cosmetics Business, 8/11/2025
“The animal rights group’s ‘Beauty Without Bunnies’ programme certifies when a brand does not conduct animal testing throughout the supply chain, including ingredients, formulations and finished products, or sell in markets which require it. In the EU, the Cosmetics Regulation outlaws animal testing for cosmetics purposes. However, Peta has called out a loophole in legislation which allows cosmetics products that have been tested on animals under separate legislation. Under REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals), animal testing is mandated for assessing the risk of certain chemicals in the workplace.”
“Peta has now announced a ‘policy overhaul’ in order to ‘preserve the integrity of the cruelty-free standard going forward’ and is calling for the loophole to be closed. This means that only those companies that sell their products in the US, Canada, Germany or India will be listed on Peta’s list of cruelty-free companies.” 📰 Full Story →
London’s St. Joseph’s hospital ending use of dogs in heart research
Robert Cribb, Jenna Olsen, & Masih Khalatbari, The London Free PRess, 8/11/2025
“After decades of secretly inducing heart attacks in dogs as part of cardiac research, St. Joseph’s Hospital ended the practice on Monday in the aftermath of an Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) investigation. In a public statement, the Lawson Research Institute at St. Joseph’s announced it will ‘immediately cease research studies involving dogs’ following consultation with the province.”
“The decision came five days after the IJB, in partnership with Postmedia, published a detailed investigation into a dog testing program shrouded in secrecy. The story details clandestine experiments that force the animals into heart attacks lasting as long as three hours, according to internal study protocol documents reviewed by journalists and experts.”
“On Saturday afternoon, more than 100 people attended a vigil outside St. Joseph’s Hospital to commemorate the dogs used in the research and protest the testing . . . Animal Justice is now calling on St. Joseph’s to rehome the dogs.” 📰 Full Story →
Cambodian Monkey, Destined for Research, Dies During Transport to Canada
Animal Protection Party of Canada, GlobalNewswire, 8/12/2025
“The Animal Protection Party of Canada has just learned that an adult male long-tailed macaque from Cambodia was found dead in his transport crate upon arrival at Montreal-Mirabel airport. The details of the monkey’s grueling 45-hour flight from last August were obtained through an Access to Information request….”
“The pathology report for this monkey indicates that the flight experienced an ‘unexpected, additional 20-hour delay.’ This ‘delay,’ however, which was over 27 hours long at Tbilisi International Airport in Georgia, was because neither the importer of the monkeys, Charles River Laboratories, nor the air carrier, SkyTaxi, had secured proper permits for the plane to land in Canada, violating Canadian transportation regulations. The Canadian Transportation Agency further discovered that the company had committed the same violation on two previous flights conducted earlier in the year.”
“ . . . the 100 monkeys on this flight were confined to their tiny wooden transport crates for almost two full days with limited access to water and food. According to the highly redacted pathology report, ‘functional cardiac disease (i.e. arrhythmia) indicative of an acute process’ was the suspected cause of death. The monkey was also noted to have ‘bilateral epistaxis’ (i.e. blood coming from both nostrils).” 📰 Full Story →
WCW Lawsuits Demand Documents On $600 Million in NIH Grants Funding Dog and Cat Labs
White Coat Waste Project, 8/13/2025
“ . . . WCW has filed four new Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the NIH demanding that it turn over records related to $600 million in recent and active grants and contracts paying for wasteful and inhumane testing on pets in the U.S. and in foreign countries. WCW’s FOIA lawsuits cover 15 separate requests that the NIH has been sitting on from anywhere between four months and over a year.” 📰 Full Story →
Colorado State University Shutters Animal Study After Pressure From National Research Ethics Group
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, 8/14/2025
“The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit national medical ethics group, applauds Colorado State University for its decision to shutter a nutrition study for which the university had approved the killing of 17,766 animals. The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the university, claimed to investigate the effect of legumes on the human gut microbiome. Public records reveal the primary investigator had to date used 1,587 mice. An initial USDA grant of $498,500 funded the experiments. A subsequent USDA Cooperative Agreement, active through Dec. 31, 2025, shared ongoing costs with the university.”
“‘Dietary studies investigating the effects of pulse-rich diets on the gut microbiome and noncommunicable disease outcomes are ethically and effectively conducted using human volunteers,’ Janine McCarthy, acting director of research policy for the Physicians Committee, wrote….” 📰 Full Story →
Former “Lab Chimps” Are Thriving in Retirement
Rise for Animals, 8/13/2025
Check out how the chimpanzees released from the Alamogordo Primate Facility have settled into sanctuary life at Chimp Haven! Rise for Animals is proud to help support these chimpanzees in their retirement from research: 📰 Full Story →
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