Political Quotes

“I, too, rise in support of this bipartisan amendment. I thank my colleagues, Mr. Brat, Mr. Poe, and Mr. Khanna, for introducing it. We want to prohibit funds from being used by the Department of the VA on studies that cause significant pain and distress to dogs. As a former member of the House Veterans Affairs' Committee and a longtime advocate of animal protection, I firmly believe we should not be using taxpayer dollars to fund painful and unnecessary experimental procedures when we have technological advances that can move us toward alternative methods. {time} 1900 We have seen the NIH in their chimpanzee research, and they said that available technologies are more accurate, faster, and less expensive than animal testing. The U.S. military is moving away from using live animals in trauma medical testing. We have seen that when the Coast Guard gave up their live tissue training program. The Los Angeles VA just recently announced it is suspending controversial and gruesome experiments on a colony of narcoleptic Dobermans. It is now time for the rest of the VA to do the same thing. This amendment is supported by the Humane Society, the Animal Welfare Institute, and the White Coat Waste Project. It is estimated that 44 percent of all households--and you heard my colleagues mention this--in the United States have a dog. In our culture, they are considered cherished pets, and they are a member of the family. They are not to be used for experiments.…”