From:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/02/usda-ends-pra...
tens.html

Facing mounting pressure, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday it
will cease the controversial practice of laboratory test research using
cats.

The USDA has been using kittens and cats in taxpayer-funded research to
study parasites that can cause death to humans from foodborne illness. NBC
News reported March 19 that the USDA?s practice included feeding dog and cat
meat obtained in ?Asian meat markets? to cats.

Last month, bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress to end the
agency?s experiments on kittens.

In a statement Tuesday, USDA said the Agricultural Research Service?s
?toxoplasmosis research has been redirected and the use of cats as part of
any research protocol in any ARS laboratory has been discontinued and will
not be reinstated. ? The agency didn?t make mention of any dogs in its
release.

?I commend the USDA for their decision to end this type of testing on
kittens,? said Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., who authored the House version
of the bipartisan KITTEN Act, or the Kittens in Traumatic Testing Ends Now
Act of 2019. ?They listened to the people and responded appropriately to our
concerns. This is how our institutions, our government, and our democracy
should and must work.?

When the KITTEN Act was announced last month, backers noted in a release
that the USDA?s experiments on cats and kittens involved ?hundreds of
kittens bred, fed parasite-infected raw meat, and then killed annually.?

Republican Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, who co-introduced the legislation, said
at the time the ?cruel testing practices? cost taxpayers more than $650,000
annually and ?put the lives of innocent kittens in danger.?

Other cosponsors of the House legislation included GOP Rep. Brian Mast of
Florida and Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. A companion
piece of legislation was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Jeff Merkley
(D-OR).

?With all the awful reports coming out, it was clear that Americans opposed
USDA?s cruel testing on kittens,? Rep. Mast said in a statement. ?This is a
decisive victory against government animal abuse and wasteful spending.?

Mast also lauded the USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue for ending the experiments
but also called on other federal government agencies to ?put a permanent end
to abusive and painful animal testing.?

?Food safety in ARS is of paramount importance for agriculture and the
public we serve,? Chavonda Jacobs-Young, administrator of USDA?s ARS agency,
said in a statement. ?We are continually assessing our research and
priorities and aligning our resources to the problems of highest national
priority.?

USDA said its research into toxoplasmosis has yielded results, including
helping to cut the prevalence of the Toxoplasma gondii parasite by as much
as 50 percent in the U.S. It said the parasite causing toxoplasmosis is
especially dangerous to individuals with weak immune systems, such as
children and HIV patients.

?Over the course of this research, ARS worked to minimize reliance on cats,?
USDA said. It added that ?no cats have been infected with taxoplasmosis
pathogens or euthanized since September 2018.?

Finally, USDA said an external independent panel charged with reviewing the
safety of adopting the cats now recommends that the animals never infected
be made available for adoption. The agency said it is currently in the
process of adopting these 14 cats to employees of the USDA and in accordance
with regulatory guidelines.

--Sean

P.S. Sorry for the weird characters for quotes.  Windows to Linux codepage
issue I am too lazy to fix.


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