President Bush recently signed into law the $190 billion Farm Security Act, more commonly known as the Farm Bill, which contained Senator Jesse Helms' controversial amendment to permanently deny birds, rats and mice legal protection under the federal Animal Welfare Act. It was a great disappointment to the animal protection community.

The bill's passage means that birds, rats, and mice used in laboratories, which represent 95% of the animals used in research, will remain unprotected under the AWA. The HSUS and other animal-protection organizations have been fighting to include these species under the AWA for nearly three decades, and were poised to win the battle this time. A settlement agreement reached in 2000 with animal welfare groups that had sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture paved the way for mice, rats and birds to be covered.

But in February 2002, Helms (R-NC) amended the Senate's version of the Farm Bill to deny AWA protections to birds, rats and mice. The House version included no such provision, but the conference committee opted in late April to accept the Helms amendment.

The AWA, enacted in 1966, is the primary federal law governing the treatment of animals used in research. In 1970, Congress extended the provisions of the AWA to include all warm-blooded vertebrates (i.e. mammals and birds). Following this congressional amendment, the USDA issued new regulations that broadened the definition of "animal," but explicitly excluded bird and laboratory-bred mice and rats from coverage.