PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT

International grassroots campaignspeta organizes campaigns to inform the public about the abuse and killing of animals in the experimentation, food, clothing, and entertainment industries, among other types of cruelty. In 2024, peta organized and led 1,317 demonstrations and sent out millions of letters through online advocacy campaigns to urge companies and individuals to make changes that benefit animals.animals in the experimentation industrythe u.s. Court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit ruled that the national institutes of health (nih) violated the first amendment by blocking criticism of animal testing. Its decision came in response to a lawsuit brought on behalf of peta and an individual plaintiff by lawyers at the foundation to support animal protection, the knight first amendment institute at columbia university, and the animal legal defense fund. It says that nih's current and past blocking of keywords including "monkey(s)," "cats," "mouse," "experiment," "testing," "peta," "torture, and "revolting"on its social media pages is illegal. This landmark decision reinforces that nih can no longer distort public discourse over its work by censoring critics of cruel, pointless experiments on animals. As the court explained, allowing nih to block "words related to animal testing as categorically off-topic defies common sense."the cites animals committee, which sets international policy for the trade in wild animals, has decided to maintain additional scrutiny of endangered monkeys exported from cambodia, the philippines, and vietnam rather than dropping these animals off the list. This will help keep these animals out of u.s. Laboratories. Peta had reviewed documents from these countries and submitted analyses raising legitimate questions regarding the reliability and validity of the countries' claims about their success with captive breeding. Peta also petitioned the u.s. Fish & wildlife service to list these animals as endangered under the federal endangered species act, which would provide them with additional protection.the louisiana supreme court ruled in peta's favor and ordered that louisiana state university (lsu) can't keep public records about christine lattin's deadly experiments on sparrows hidden. The university had fought peta to keep lattin's records secret since 2019, saying that it had no records or obligation to provide records that it did have. After peta won both at trial and before the louisiana court of appeal, lsu appealed to the highest court in the state, which affirmed the decisions of both lower courts, finding that lsu must produce the records including videos of lattin's experiments that peta had requested. In addition, lsu paid peta attorney's fees and costs awarded by the trial court in the amount of $73,501.the national institute of general medical sciences, part of the nih, announced at a recent conference that it would stop funding the most common types of sepsis experiments on animals and instead shift resources toward superior, human-relevant methods. The move follows years of pressure from peta and its ongoing lawsuit challenging the agency's continued funding of failed sepsis experiments on mice and other animals. This lawsuit is the first of its kind to challenge an entire area of research.after pressure and complaints from peta, a sleep fragmentation experiment that university of massachusetts amherst experimenter agnes lacreuse had moved to the university of wisconsin madison's wisconsin national primate research center was halted. Uw-madison had received approval to subject 32 marmosets to 24 nights, over two months, of loud, blaring noises to wake them repeatedly. Instead, six marmoset monkeys were deprived of sleep for just one night.after peta provided the university of washington board of regents with evidence of director michele basso's failings and called for her dismissal, she was removed as director of the washington national primate research center (wanprc). Basso, who has long history of utter disregard for the monkeys she experiments on, had botched surgical implants in the skulls of monkeys and was responsible for multiple violations of federal animal welfare laws. Lawmakers in washington state introduced a bill that would require transparency at the publicly funded wanprc, which has received hundreds of millions of tax dollars in the past 10 years alone. The primate act would have required that the wanprc publish data annually on the number and species of primates in its facilities, how they're used in experimentation, injuries and deaths, unintended infections and illnesses, violations of the federal animal welfare act (awa), public funding received, and the composition of oversight committees and boards. The bill followed peta's campaigns and lawsuits and gained nine cosponsors on its first day. While it ultimately did not pass in this session, it was the first act of the washington state legislature challenging the primate center and will likely be reintroduced.the u.s. Court of appeals for the ninth circuit granted peta a victory in its appeal of a ruling from the u.s. District court for the western district of washington that permitted members of the university of washington institutional animal care and use committee to have their names redacted in public records responses. Peta's science advancement & outreach division, in collaboration with a multiorganizational group of researchers and advocates, won the lush prize, the largest award offered within the animal-free research community, in major science collaboration. The coveted biannual prize is internationally competitive and recognizes the most promising collaborations that are working to develop and promote alternatives to animal testing. Peta's group triumphed over two fierce competitors, securing a prestigious center-stage spotlight on its work to advance non-animal research methods.peta's complaint to the u.s. Department of agriculture (usda) resulted in a $1,000 penalty against hainan airlines after confirming its allegation that the company had violated federal law in august 2022 by flying 720 monkeys more than 8,000 miles from cambodia to chicago without being registered with the agency as required. Peta has since confirmed that hainan airlines still has no registration and appears to be out of the monkey-transport industry.local residents in bainbridge, georgia, filed a lawsuit against the city government and multiple county agencies that voted, in violation of georgia's open meetings act, to approve a plan which included $58 million in tax abatements to build the largest monkey-breeding facility in the u.s. The planned facility would import, breed, and warehouse monkeys destined to be poisoned, mutilated, and killed in pointless laboratory experiments, risking the spread of infectious diseases and degrading the environment.according to the lawsuit, the agencies failed to publish notices or agendas, record the presence or absence of their members, and identify individual members who voted to approve the project, along with violating the act in other ways. Local residents have also filed a nuisance lawsuit against the company for the harm that would come to them if the facility is built.more than 24,000 peta supporters emailed agency officials at the taiwan food and drug administration to finalize regulations that removes animal testing as an option for companies wanting to make human iron health claims for marketing their food and beverage products. The testing included feeding baby rats an iron-deficient diet to induce anemia and then feeding them a test food, after which their blood was repeatedly taken. The agency now requires only safe and effective human tests for this purpose. Recommendations formally and repeatedly made by peta, some nearly verbatim, were included in the nih approving a plan to invest in and study animal-free, human-relevant research methods. The program is expected to fund $35 million to $40 million a year to "significantly advance understanding of human health and disease."after the military heard from peta, a u.s. Army funded brain damage experiment on ferrets ended more than six months ahead of schedule at michigan's wayne state university. Ferrets will no longer be purposely bombarded with radio waves, killed, and dissected in this gruesome experiment. Peta is urging the army to stop subjecting any species to crude and pointless weapon-wounding tests and switch to animal-free methods that are actually relevant to human health.

Peta encourages and facilitates cruelty-free living by providing compassionate people around the world with consumer products such as cosmetics and household cleaners that aren't tested on animals, animal-care products, and animal rights t-shirts informational videos and books, animal-rescue equipment, and campaign materials. These items are available online through the peta shopping guide and the peta shop. This fiscal year, beauty without bunnies added 381 new companies to peta's cruelty-free list, bringing our new total to 6,711. Some notable brands include axe and lynx (unilever) and roc skincare.