Articles from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

The nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which promotes the use of human-based research to improve health and replace animal use, enthusiastically supports the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s landmark commitment to prioritize innovative, human-based methods, like organoids, tissue chips, computational models, and real-world data analyses, while reducing animal use.

For the first time, the advisory committee tasked with making scientific recommendations for revising the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended that the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines “include more nutrient-dense plant-based meal and dietary recommendation options,” prioritize plant-based protein over animal protein, and recognize the many benefits of beans, peas, and lentils as a protein source. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) continued to discourage consuming foods like red meat, eggs, and dairy that are high in saturated fat, while also suggesting that the next Dietary Guidelines for Americans specifically recommend plain drinking water as the primary beverage for people to consume.

Ghostbusters actor and Wayne State University graduate Ernie Hudson today called on his alma mater to end its controversial dog experiments after seeing “disturbing” images from the breeding facility that supplies animals to the school. In a letter to Wayne State President Kimberly Andrews Espy, Hudson wrote he was “shocked” to learn of the “painful, deadly heart failure experiments” conducted on dogs at the university but realized “the cruelty goes even deeper” after seeing the new images. He described long rows of elevated cages holding beagles, feces piled underneath. He also references “a dead dog shoved into a metal bin, his head twisted sideways, his brown coat soaked with what appears to be mud or feces.”

In a letter sent today to Duke, 552 physicians are urging the university to halt the controversial practice of using and killing animals to train medical students. The letter, spearheaded by the national medical ethics group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, points out that no other medical school in the United States or Canada is known to kill animals to train students, and none has done so since 2016. Duke only reinstated the practice, in which invasive surgical procedures are performed on pigs, recently and has separately come under fire by medical training experts. To capture the university’s attention, the Physicians Committee has also taken out large “King Kong” ads on the sides of 15 GoDurham buses and has placed 20 ads around Durham Station that declare, in advance of Saturday’s men’s basketball game against the University of North Carolina, “Duke Already Lost.” The ads continue, “Winners Don’t Kill Animals to ‘Teach’ Med Students. UNCisWinning.org.”

A physicians group is warning the Food and Drug Administration that its proposed rule to allow meat and dairy products high in saturated fat to be labeled as “healthy,” a highly-coveted food industry marketing term, puts Americans at risk for heart disease, cancer, and other significant health risks. The Physicians Committee is a nonprofit of more than 17,000 doctors.

As part of an ongoing public records lawsuit by a national doctors group, the University of California, Davis revealed this month that it possesses 371 photographs related to monkey experiments conducted by Elon Musk’s company Neuralink. The nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine sued UC Davis in February 2022 for refusing to release photographs and videos of the experiments. According to university veterinary records, Neuralink experimenters cut holes in monkeys’ skulls to implant electrodes in the animals’ brains as part of the company’s work on a “brain-machine interface.” Between 2017 and 2020, the company paid UC Davis $1.4 million to use the university’s facilities and animals. Neuralink now conducts experiments at its facilities in California and Texas.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national nonprofit, public health organization with more than 17,000 doctor members, slammed the U.S. Department of Agriculture today for its gift of $21.9 million to help the meat industry push its products on U.S. consumers, many of whom suffer from obesity, diabetes, and other ailments made worse by consumption of these products.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national public health nonprofit of more than 17,000 doctor members, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, Aug. 15, in support of California’s Proposition 12, a law establishing confinement standards for pigs and other farmed animals.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine—a nonprofit with 17,000 doctor members, has written to President Joe Biden to express concerns about the potential nomination of Dr. Mary Klotman for director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Physicians Committee pointed out Klotman’s long history of nonhuman primate use in her own research.

If passed by the U.S. Senate, a hazardous provision included in S.4348, the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Landmark Advancements Act (FDASLA), will have a sweeping and devastating impact for animals protected by laws in eight states that ban the sale of animal-tested cosmetics.

Amid ongoing shortages of baby formula, physicians and dietitians with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit of more than 17,000 physicians, provide 5 key tips for parents.

May is Arthritis Awareness Month. A low-fat vegan diet, without calorie restrictions, improves joint pain in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and published this month in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. Study participants also experienced weight loss and improved cholesterol levels.

Nutrition researcher and New York Times bestselling author Neal Barnard, MD, has canceled the publication of his new book, Your Body in Balance, with one of Russia’s largest publishers, AST, in protest of Russian President Putin’s war on Ukraine.

Trends in prediabetes among children aged 12 to 19 doubled in the last 20 years, according to a survey study published this week in JAMA Pediatrics. According to data from the U.S. government’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1999-2018, 1 in 5 children has prediabetes. To curb this crisis, the Physicians Committee, a nonprofit group of 17,000 doctors, outlined key steps to correct this approaching health epidemic.

On Jan. 24, a California state court handed a victory to plant-based inmates and advocates seeking enforcement of a law requiring California prisons to provide inmates with plant-based meals. The 2018 law, SB 1138, championed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a not-for-profit organization with more than 17,000 doctor members, places an inmate’s entitlement to plant-based meals on equal footing with the fundamental right to basic human necessities, such as bedding, clothing, and other wholesome food.

In response to significant public opposition to efforts by San Antonio Mayor Nirenberg and the City Council to rush $10 million in critical federal funds to a notorious primate experimentation facility, the city is telling critics to be silent. Yesterday, City Attorney Andy Segovia wrote to John J. Pippin, MD, FACC, director of academic affairs for the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which represents more than 17,000 doctors, regarding the group’s request that federal agencies investigate the planned $10 million award of federal funds to the Texas Biomedical Research Institute. Segovia stated that “the City is confident in its assessment of the Texas Biomed project’s eligibility for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding” but failed to provide any evidence in support of that assessment. In closing, Segovia told Dr. Pippin to “refrain from making any further allegations…”

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and members of the City Council are trying to bypass voters and rush $10 million in public funds to a notorious, wealthy animal experimentation facility, but a national physicians group isn’t having it. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which represents more than 17,000 doctors, today requested that the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Government Accountability Office open investigations into city leaders’ effort to misuse public funding for the Texas Biomedical Research Institute.

The Child Nutrition Act of 2022 (AB 558), a bill co-sponsored by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, passed the California Assembly today. The bill incentivizes K-12 public schools across the state to offer healthier, climate-friendly plant-based meals and beverages.

The Physicians Committee’s One Healthy World program—which launches Jan. 13, 2022, in four languages spoken by billions of people worldwide—will provide a master class on why and how to start a vegan diet—whether it’s for health, the environment, or animals. Registration is now open at PCRM.org/OneHealthyWorld.

A plant-based diet helped hospital workers improve their heart health and quality of life at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.

“Beans Not Beef” is the Earth Day message the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine recently spelled out with bags of beans on the National Mall. The message coincided with the White House’s climate summit. The doctors group recently petitioned the White House to update its executive order titled “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” to recommend policy changes that could help alleviate the climate crisis and improve human health by cutting animal agriculture and promoting a plant-based diet.

New Jersey-based physician Saray Stancic, MD, has led a successful campaign to persuade University Hospital to reduce patient exposure to bacon cheeseburgers and other foods linked to life-threatening conditions including diabetes and heart disease. In early April, the hospital’s CEO, Shereef Elnehal, MD, confirmed that the Burger King at University Hospital has closed. The restaurant had been providing artery-clogging burgers and shakes to visitors, patients, and staff for about 25 years.