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Monthly Accomplishments and Update
Animal Wellness Action, the Center for a Humane Economy, and the Animal Wellness Foundation
November 2025
Summary
* The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pledging to end invasive testing on primates, just weeks after a Wisconsin-based company was forced to phase out beagle breeding for laboratory use. These gains are a result of our work that produced the landmark FDA Modernization Act 2.0 and a testament to our continued efforts to wind down testing on primates, dogs, and other animals.
* The U.S. Senate passed key provisions of the Freedom in School Cafeterias and Lunches (FISCAL) Act to eliminate the 80-year federal cow’s milk mandate and to expand the availability of plant-based milk for kids in the National School Lunch Program.
* Etsy, bowing to pressure from our organizations, stopped allowing cockfighting gaffs and knives to be sold on its online sales platform in November. But e-commerce giant eBay is continuing to violate federal and state laws that forbid the sale of cockfighting implements. Meanwhile, there was a spate of busts as the cockfighting season opened right around Thanksgiving. And in a priority legislative campaign, we have now secured 1,000 endorsers for our FIGHT Act.
* 182 House Democrats signed a letter to the Agriculture Committee expressing opposition to the Save Our Bacon (SOB) Act, formerly the EATS Act. That regressive legislation seeks to overturn Prop 12 and Question 3—the two most important farm animal welfare laws in the nation.
* The Senate’s action to keep alive the federal government’s plan to massacre barred owls—and to use that plan as a lever to kill spotted owls and cut down old-growth forests—is stirring a major backlash among millions of Americans. Meanwhile, our lawsuit to stop the kill proceeds ahead in federal court.
Modernize Testing
CDC issues directive to halt the use of primates across all centers at the public health agency.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will phase out [[link removed]] invasive monkey testing and research—a significant development in federal science policy at the premier U.S. public health agency that bolsters the ongoing shift toward more predictive, less expensive human-based research methods. This marks the first time in U.S. history that a federal agency has shuttered its entire in-house primate research program, a development on par with the NIH’s retirement of chimpanzees from experimentation a decade ago.
Like the FDA’s Roadmap to Reduce Animal Testing in Preclinical Studies released earlier this year, the CDC’s decision flows directly from the reforms established by the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, which ended a federal animal testing mandate in place since the Great Depression. It is that law that is making a transition possible to non-animal methods.
The CDC’s directive followed an October legal settlement in which Ridglan Farms agreed to end all beagle breeding and sales to laboratories by July 2026. Following that breakthrough, Marshall BioResources in upstate New York will stand as the last remaining large-scale breeder of research beagles in the United States. As such, we are dedicating efforts to addressing that company’s exploitation of dogs. At the same time, we are working closely with the FDA, NIH, and key lawmakers to dramatically reduce and ultimately phase out primate testing nationwide, including winding down the work of the network of National Regional Primate Centers (NPRCs), which collectively use tens of thousands of primates annually.
Take action: Tell your legislators here [[link removed]] that you support the end of animal testing for new drugs.
Dunking the Milk Mandate
We are bringing competition and plant-based milks to the school lunch program.
We are poised to break [[link removed]] the 80-year cow’s milk mandate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), with the Senate passing a bill including key provisions of our FISCAL Act, as part of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act. For decades, the milk mandate exploited dairy cows who were bioengineered for hyperproduction to meet an artificially created demand. It also left kids hungry or ill, given that nearly 40% of Americans are lactose-intolerant and students throw away millions of gallons of milk each year.
Due to selective breeding for high yields, the average Holstein on an industrialized farm now produces six to seven times more milk annually than in the years before the milk mandate was written into law. Such forced, unnatural yield causes a slew of physiological and physical problems for cows, including lameness and leg and joint problems. Dairy cows are susceptible to becoming “downers” and are often “spent” at a young age, causing them to be sent to slaughter at an early stage of life.
Three years ago, we launched the “Dunking the Milk Mandate in Schools” campaign to break big dairy’s monopoly in school cafeterias. We estimate 177 million gallons of milk are wasted annually [[link removed]] , with as much as $400 million in taxpayer dollars squandered by giving kids a food item that induces a range of adverse physical reactions. With our primary partner, Switch4Good [[link removed]] , we built a coalition of 200 organizations, including food allergy and disease groups, as well as educational associations, and lined up a bipartisan set of lawmakers in the House and Senate to drive forward this reform.
Under the new legislation, schools will be empowered to: a) offer dairy-free milk to students as part of their regular lunchroom options, as well as whole and 2% milk again, as part of the NSLP; and b) provide lactose-intolerant kids with a dairy-free beverage—such as soy, oat, or almond milk—with a note from a parent, guardian, or licensed physician specifying whatever dairy-free beverage should be served to the student.
More is to be done to protect America’s dairy cows. Will you support our work here [[link removed]] ?
Animal Fighting Is the Pits
Etsy shuts down trafficking of cockfighting implements, but eBay remains a holdout.
During the holiday shopping season, the Center for a Humane Economy has tagged e-commerce giant eBay for illegally and knowingly allowing the sale of deadly cockfighting implements on its platform, supplying cockfighters with the weapons that maim and kill millions of animals at clandestine fighting derbies. After our investigations uncovered the contraband also sold on Etsy, that company removed numerous listings [[link removed]] for cockfighting gaffs and knives—razor-sharp weapons strapped to legs of fighting birds—from its website. But eBay hasn’t budged yet.
Meanwhile, at our urging, law enforcement throughout the nation is stepping up to battle animal fighting, including a major bust [[link removed]] of dogfighters in Newton County. Also in Texas, the Johnson County Sheriffs’ Office busted a cockfight [[link removed]] , arresting 25 people and seizing 74 roosters—the latest such raid in a region that we identified last month in a major new investigative report as a “cockfighting corridor” between Tulsa and Dallas. In Arizona, law enforcement in Pinal County broke up a major cockfight [[link removed]] , making arrests and seizing 110 roosters, while West Virginia authorities took action to break up a fight there, the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office disbanded a fighting operation [[link removed]] in that Louisiana community, and West Haven law enforcement arrested dozens [[link removed]] at a cockfight in Connecticut.
Momentum on the FIGHT Act in Congress is unmistakable, with this proposed upgrade of the federal law against animal fighting attracting an extraordinary 1,000 endorsements, including recent ones from the Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association [[link removed]] and the Major County Sheriffs of America [[link removed]] . Law enforcement keenly understands that staged fighting is a cluster crime frequently linked to illegal gambling, money laundering, firearms possession, narcotics trafficking, and other crimes.
Make your voice heard by going here [[link removed]] to support the FIGHT Act.
Cage-Free Future
House Democrats line up against overturning key state farm animal welfare laws.
As we continue to defend state farm animal welfare laws from an overreaching group of certain farm-state lawmakers, 182 Democrats in the U.S. House sent a letter [[link removed]] to House Agriculture Committee leaders opposing H.R. 4673, the Save Our Bacon (SOB) Act. The SOB Act is a reprise of the former EATS Act [[link removed]] and the Protect Interstate Commerce Act that failed to pass in every Congress dating back nearly 15 years. In July, 30 Democrats and two Independents in the Senate issued [[link removed]] their own letter of opposition to the Senate companion bill, while in September, 14 House Republicans sent a similar letter [[link removed]] of opposition.
This outpouring of congressional opposition to the SOB Act is buttressed by our detailed examination of the issue where we observe that the “National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) is seeing massive defections [[link removed]] within its ranks on its 15-year campaign to overturn Prop 12 and other state farm animal welfare laws.” Even major pork companies that had been critical of California’s law are producing Prop 12-compliant meat for that market.
Small, medium, and large pig producers are opposing the SOB Act because overturning Prop 12 is running against their economic interests. “[F]armers have collectively invested billions of dollars in more humane housing systems to supply 50 million consumers in California and Massachusetts,” wrote Wayne Pacelle in a guest column [[link removed]] in the Cedar Rapids Gazette on November 30. “They cannot, on the whims of Congress, suddenly rebuild massive hog confinement facilities that would cost them many millions more.”
Go here [[link removed]] to tell your elected officials to protect laws that protect farm animals.
Saving Owls
Anger over Senate’s failure to stop reckless killing of forest owls propels continuing battle.
While our federal lawsuit moves ahead to stop the federal government’s plan to kill half a million barred owls across three states, we are continuing to harness the anger [[link removed]] of hundreds of organizations and millions of Americans to demand that lawmakers and the Trump administration nix the unworkable scheme.
Senator John Kennedy and other allies remain focused [[link removed]] on stopping the kill. We continue to be perplexed that some environmental groups [[link removed]] support this slaughter, even after we uncovered that the plan is even worse than originally described: it is not only an unprecedented assault on barred owls, but a maneuver [[link removed]] by federal land management agencies and the timber industry to kill threatened Northern spotted owls and to start cutting some of the most precious old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. We’ve amassed testimonials from a dozen leading wildlife scientists, including former top scientists [[link removed]] at the National Park Service with the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks asserting that the plan opens 14 iconic national parks to owl hunting and has no reasonable chance [[link removed]] of attaining its goal of separating barred owls and spotted owls.
While we continue the fight for owls in Congress, we also will focus on our case in the federal courts. Will you support our work? Go here [[link removed]] to donate today.

Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Center for a Humane Economy
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