Your Voice Matters: Contact President Trump and Congress Today!

As the NABR reported last week to their members, the new Congress has already begun business in Washington for its 2017-2019 legislative session. A total of 55 new Freshman Members of Congress from states and districts across the country are now settling-in to legislate on a full slate of issues, including those that impact biomedical research with animal studies.

In order to introduce these new lawmakers to NABR, its membership, and the various issues facing the future of biomedical research, NABR has sent a welcome letter to them and the rest of the 115th Congress. NABR encourages you to do the same. If you'd like to voice your support for biomedical research in this upcoming Congress and Presidential Administration, you can write the President, Vice President, your Senators, your Congressperson and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This investment of your time will pay significant dividends in terms of educating policy makers about the irreplaceable value of humane animal research.

There's a pre-written letter below that you can send to:

• The President
• The Vice President
• Your U.S. Senators
• Your U.S. House Representative
• Kevin Shea, Administrator, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
• Agriculture, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary

Subject:
Please Stand-Up and Support Biomedical Research

"I write to introduce myself as a constituent who is a member of the biomedical research community concerned about the future of lifesaving and life improving research.

Despite technological advances in the field of discovery research, animal research remains vital to our mission to understand disease, discover targeted therapies, alleviate suffering and improve and increase the quality of life. Almost every major medical advancement of the last 100 years has depended upon research with these models, including the top 25 most prescribed medications. Peer reviewed studies involving animals are strictly governed by a rigid structure of laws, regulations and guidelines and they have provided irreplaceable knowledge in the process of discovering new therapies to treat, cure, and prevent disease. Immunizations, organ transplants, reconstructive surgeries, and other innovations have been brought to fruition through responsible scientific research with animals. Even cancer studies, like those in the Cancer Moonshot, rely on ethical and humane animal use in the search for a cure to eradicate cancer. Animal models play a significant role in finding interventions for the world's five deadliest diseases and in lowering healthcare costs.

Undoubtedly, you will be asked to review legislative and regulatory initiatives affecting research involving animal models during your term. Animal rights groups, long time opponents to my work, have regularly sought to pass legislation that would handcuff universities, medical and veterinary schools, teaching hospitals, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, patient groups and academic and professional societies in the endeavor to advance veterinary and human health. I ask that you please seriously consider the impact that enactment of such legislation would have upon the lifesaving research protocols that I and thousands of others work on daily.

Please SUPPORT SCIENCE and OPPOSE any short-sighted efforts that would derail significant and revolutionary research.

Should you or your staff have questions about biomedical research, animal law, or animal rights activism against research, please do not hesitate to contact the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR) at (202) 857-0540 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. On behalf of myself and my colleagues in the biomedical research community, I wish you a rewarding and productive legislative session." - National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR).