In general the trend appears to be towards an increase
in animal experimentation. The total of all of the National Institutes
of Health-funded projects involving the listed animals (macaca, saimiri,
rat, mouse, dog, cat, guinea pig, hamster& rabbit,) for fiscal 2002 is
33,014. The total for 2001 was 29,699. This is an annual increase of
11%. Grants funded using seven of the nine measured species increased
significantly. The remaining two species (hamsters and squirrel monkeys)
had only minor changes (See Appendix A for national species by species
totals for 2002, 2001, 1998, & 1993 –
providing the basis for one-year, five-year, and ten-year comparisons).
The total for 1998 (a five-year span) is 26,408. The
increase from 1998 to 2002 is 6,606 new grants, or an increase of 25%.
The 1993 total is 20,675. Using this number we now have a ten-year span
to examine. This shows an increase of 12,399 projects or 59.7% for a
ten-year period. This trend does not overtly examine dollars spent or
animals used. It examines only the actual number of grants awarded by
the NIH. However, a ten-year increase of approximately 60% is very high.
Using this data it is possible to develop a very
general approximation of how much the NIH spends on animal experiments
every year. The NIH publishes average dollar amounts per grant. For the
year 2002, the average grant was $309,225. For the sake of dealing in
more round numbers, and to keep the estimates in this report
conservative this will be rounded down to $300,000. This approach
generates an estimated 2002 NIH animal experimentation funding total of
$9,904,200,000, or approximately $10 Billion.
