Corteva AgriScience announced Monday that they are ending a fungicide study that involved testing the chemicals on 36 beagles in a Mattawan lab.
The Humane Society of the United States brought attention to the tests on March 12 when they released their undercover investigation at Charles River Labs. Disturbing video was taken at the lab and it showed the beagles being force-fed chemicals as a part of a yearlong test.
The pesticide test was contracted by Corteva AgroSciences (the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont), according to the Humane Society.
Monday afternoon, Corteva tweeted out their statement about the testing, saying that they filed a waiver with Brazil's Agencia Nacional de Viglilancia Sanitaria to amend its requirements for animal testing with pesticides.
"Today we received official confirmation that the tests we were seeking to change are no longer required for our product," the company said. "We have immediately ended the study that was the subject of attention last week and will make every effort to rehome the animals that were part of the study."
The study was scheduled to conclude in July 2019, and the Humane Society said that the dogs were going to be killed at the end of it.
It is legal in the United States to conduct toxicity testing on dogs, however the Humane Society calls this type of testing "cruel and unusual."
Kitty Block, the president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States released a statement in response to the announcement about the testing. It said:“We applaud Dow AgroSciences (Corteva AgriScience) for making the right decision by ending the one-year pesticide test on 36 beagles at Charles River Laboratories in Michigan. This is a significant step that is critical to the welfare of the dogs. We now urge Corteva to work with us to get the dogs out of the laboratory and to our shelter and rescue partners so that they can be adopted into loving homes.”
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