“March to End Animal Testing” reaches Marshall BioResources

Bill to ban federally funded biomedical research on dogs & cats introduced in D.C.

NORTH ROSE,  New York––The human population of North Rose,  New York,  officially listed as 571,  is expected to double and perhaps triple or more on September 26,  2026,  as the 207-mile “March to End Animal Testing” concludes with a three-mile hike to the headquarters of Marshall BioResources.

The animal population of Marshall BioResources,  according to federal Animal Welfare Act enforcement records,  includes nearly 16,000 beagles,  2,058 cats and kittens,  13,959 ferrets,  and 2,108 pigs,  all doomed to short,  often painful lives and frequently gruesome deaths in service of biomedical research.

How many marchers?

Neither the “March to End Animal Testing” organizers,  Gretchen Primack,  55,  and Ella Magers,  46,  nor media along the route northwest from Albany,  appear to have published estimates of participation since the march began with a rally in front of the New York state capitol on September 12.

Crowd photos taken at Canastota,  New York,  however,  on September 21,  2026 at approximately the 150-mile mark, indicated that as many as 400 people might have attended the evening events there in a persistent drizzle.

The last of more than a dozen 15-mile segments of the “March to End Animal Testing” reportedly reached Wayne County on September 25,  2026 with about 200 actual marchers.

Last-day participation was expected to increase on the morning of Saturday,  September 26,  as the march,  having passed Syracuse,  closed in on North Rose,  45 miles east of Rochester.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA] vice president of laboratory investigations Alka Chandna was to be the keynote speaker at the march-concluding rally,  scheduled to run from noon to 3:00 p.m.

Pacelle explains the federal bill

“Right now,  animal advocates are finishing a 207-mile trek from Albany to the gates of Marshall BioResources,”  posted Wayne Pacelle,  president of both Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy.

“I am pleased to be joining them today for the final leg of the march,”  Pacelle said,  suggesting that “Something game-changing has been launched as the march reaches its culmination.

“This week,”  Pacelle explained,  “U.S. Representatives Nick Langworthy,”  a Republican from New York,  “and Mark Pocan,”  a Democrat from Wisconsin,  “with a set of other lawmakers backing them,  introduced legislation to end Department of Health & Human Services funding for biomedical experiments involving live dogs and cats.

“The Companion Animal Protection Against Cruel Testing Act,  H.R. 10522,”  Pacelle explained,  “would prohibit Health & Human Services funds from supporting the purchase,  breeding, housing, transportation,  and experimental use of dogs and cats in covered biomedical research.

“It also includes provisions intended to help animals no longer needed for federally funded research move into adoption or rescue.”

Daily Caller questions Trump administration sincerity

But Emily Kopp,  senior investigative reporter for the right-leaning Daily Caller,  on September 23, 2026 cast doubt on the sincerity of Donald Trump administration claims to be encouraging efforts to reduce animal use in biomedical research and testing––in particular,  the Department of Health & Human Services under Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“The National Institutes of Health under director Jay Bhattacharya continues to be keep funding Harvard research involving the torture of baby monkeys despite having announced it was terminating it,”  Kopp charged.  Bhattacharya has resisted making several major changes at NIH since the dissolution of Elon Musk’s cost cutting project the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in 2025.

Quoted Kopp,  “’The National Institutes of Health has terminated funding at Harvard University for studies that included sewing the eyes of young monkeys shut,’  a May 2025 X post from the Institutes states,”  adding that “We’re ending cruel,  wasteful,  and taxpayer-funded animal experiments—from baby monkeys at Harvard to cats and dogs in military labs.”

Claims NIH is lying

Continued Kopp,  “The Institutes’ website falsely touts this termination of research by Harvard Medical School neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone,  whose studies on visual perception centers on young monkeys and ‘interventions that disrupt early visual experience,’  as she describes on the lab’s website.

“These ‘interventions’ involve depriving them of their mothers and blinding them at birth, sometimes by suturing their eyelids shut.  Livingstone studies their deterioration through electrode arrays implanted into their skulls, even while insisting the animals are treated well.”

            (See “Stop torturing baby monkeys!” Harvard Animal Law Clinic tells Harvard Med and Enlisting Trump “blogosphere,” White Coat Waste kills cruel cat experiments.)

“The lights are still on,”  says White Coat Waste

“Public records show that taxpayer funding continues to flow to Livingstone’s lab through four separate grants,  including a new $850,000 tranche earlier this month,”  Kopp charged.

“They also include a multi-year grant in May 2025 that funds her research until 2029,”  when Livingstone will be 80 years old.

Charged White Coat Waste president Anthony Bellotti,  “The lights are still on at Margaret Livingstone’s Harvard primate lab.  Just yesterday,  Health & Human Services launched a new PR website claiming to have ‘cut’ Livingstone’s baby-monkey blinding experiments,”  while “NIH director Jay Bhattacharya was doling out more tax money to his friends at Harvard to keep Livingstone’s monkey torture lab afloat.”

“Daily Caller was incorrect” says PETA

But Kathy Guillermo,  PETA senior vice president for laboratory investigations,  told ANIMALS 24-7 that “The information in the Daily Caller was incorrect.

“I’m happy to say Livingstone’s funding for the hideous experiments on baby monkeys was cut.

“After years of campaigning to end Margaret Livingstone’s sickening atrocities,  including ripping newborn monkeys from their mothers,  forcing them to wear vision-distorting goggles,  or subjecting them to hours of strobe lights,  PETA verified in 2025 and again yesterday that the National Institutes of Health has pulled this vile woman’s funding and her ability to continue this torture.”

But Livingstone did get an NIH grant

Backing up Kopp,  Bellotti pointed to National Institutes of Health funded project number 1R01EY036839-01,  granted to Margaret S. Livingstone.

“According to NIH RePORTER,”  Bellotti emailed,  “this grant was initially awarded on April 17, 2025,  and received its second year of funding on June 1, 2026.  NIH RePORTER specifically describes this work as involving brain experiments on monkeys.  USA Spending shows payment transactions on the grant on 4/17/25 and again on 6/1/26.

“The claim that funding for Livingstone’s baby monkey experiments had been terminated came during the broader National Institutes of Health termination of Harvard funding in May 2025,”  Bellotti asserted.

“In September 2025,  a federal court vacated and set aside the challenged Harvard funding terminations,  including NIH’s May 6,  2025 termination letter,”  Bellotti claimed.

“We do not dispute the original May 2025 cut,  in which many unrelated Harvard grants were cut by the Trump administration,”  Bellotti elaborated.

“What we question is whether RFK’s new PR website is still promoting outdated info about Livingstone getting cut,  when in fact it’s been superseded by either new RFK $ and/or a court reversal that negated the cut in the first place.”

PETA:  White Coat Waste & Daily Caller conflated Livingstone projects

Responded Kathy Guillermo,  “Funding for Livingstone’s baby monkey studies was not cut only because a swath of Harvard research lost funding.  We specifically advocated for the end of funding for this horror,  and I was told by NIH that that is the reason it was included on the bigger list of cuts. NIH Reporter indicates that both of the two grants that funded the baby monkey studies are on a ‘no cost extension’ now,  i.e.,  no money flowing.

“White Coat Waste’s reference to the ‘new’ grant,  actually a continuation of an ongoing grant,  is on adult monkeys,”  Guillermo explained.  “It was never the subject of our campaign.  And it was never cancelled with other Harvard research in the spring of 2025,  and consequently was not actually reinstated,  but just received further funding.

“The bottom line,”   Guillermo emphasized,  “is that Margaret S. Livingstone has no funding for the baby monkey vision experiments we campaigned against.  On the two grants that funded it, she has a ‘no cost extension,’  meaning no money,  no monkey torture,  but she can write up her data for publication.

“She does have a grant for an adult monkey study”

“She does have a grant for an adult monkey study,  which wasn’t part of our campaign,”  Guillermo conceded.  “And of course she’s listed on a ‘p30 Center CORE grant,'”  a type of grant that funds shared scientific resources,  equipment,  and centralized infrastructure to support a multidisciplinary group of researchers working on a common scientific problem,  “that is not baby monkey or even monkey-specific,  but is the equipment/expertise etc. overall grant that every vision researcher across Harvard is on.  It doesn’t fund specific experiments,”  Guillermo noted.

“There is plenty to complain about with the National Institutes of Health,”  Guillermo agreed, “and our statement about their new measures is clear in saying they need to step up and end funding for animal experiments.”

In that statement,  PETA director of science advancement & outreach Emily Trunnell,  Ph.d.,  urged the Department of Health & Human Services to accelerate “the closure of the National Primate Research Centers,  honor its commitment to end federal funding for experiments on dogs,  and end funding for experiments on animals in the U.S. and overseas.”

Despite the continuing PETA criticisms of the Department of Health & Human Services and the National Institutes of Health in particular,  however,  Guillermo told ANIMALS 24-7,  “I have not seen any real evidence to indicate that their statements,  both public and private,  about ending funding for the baby monkey experiments are not true.

“Believe me,”  Guillermo finished,  “if we find out it’s not, we’ll be out in front of NIH in force to protest.”

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