Courts May Have the Ability to Rule on Science: PETA v. Tabak

By Mariah Bowman | October 15th, 2026

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed its complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland on September 20, 2021, against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its then Director, Dr. Francis Collins. Dr. Lawrence Tabak began serving as the Director of NIH on December 20, 2021, and the matter continued with his name as Defendant. Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya is the current Director, having taken office on April 1, 2025. Because this matter remains ongoing, the name of the Defendant may change again; whether that occurs remains to be determined.

PETA is suing the NIH under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), specifically under Sections 706(2)(A) and 706(2)(C). PETA first alleges that the NIH’s approvals of sepsis experiments involving the use of non-human animals “are arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law” and exceed “the NIH’s statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations.” See paragraph 96 of the Complaint. PETA’s second claim under the same sections of the APA alleges that the NIH’s ongoing “policy, pattern and practice of approving grants” for animal-sepsis studies is “arbitrary, capricious, and abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law” and “exceeds the NIH’s statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations.” See paragraph 98 of the Complaint.

PETA’s reasoning behind these claims first involves the nature of sepsis experiments typically conducted on non-human animals. In the Complaint, PETA describes a common method called cecal ligation puncture (CLP). This method involves puncturing an animal’s intestines so that bacteria leak into the abdominal cavity. The mice most commonly used in these procedures experience widespread pain that ultimately leads to their death. PETA argues that because these experiments have been conducted for decades without producing improvements in the treatment of sepsis in humans, the NIH's funding of this research goes against “the statutory authority to fund research for human impairments.” See paragraph 96 of the Complaint.

Another basis for PETA’s claims is “the copious scientific evidence regarding the inefficacy of animal-sepsis experiments for treating human patients,” including the differences in how sepsis affects non-human animals versus humans. See paragraph 71 of the Complaint. PETA explains that the human experience with sepsis and the “controlled artificiality” of animal-sepsis experiments have resulted in “fundamental issues with experimental design, performance, and analysis” and render the experiments “unsound.” See paragraphs 68 and 69 of the Complaint. For example, human patients with sepsis typically receive consistent fluids and other organ support therapies, while the non-human animals used in sepsis experiments do not. The mice used in the research are also typically young and healthy before the CLP is performed, which is different from the human experience.

PETA is seeking two different kinds of relief from this lawsuit. The first is declaratory relief, which would allow the Court to declare that Defendants have acted arbitrarily and capriciously, acted not in accordance with law, abused their discretion, and exceeded their statutory jurisdiction, authority, and limitations by awarding grants for sepsis experiments on non-human animals, despite the agency's longstanding knowledge that such experiments fail to translate to human sepsis. Second, PETA is seeking injunctive relief, which would require the Court to order Defendants to refrain from doing a specific act. Specifically, PETA requests that the Court order Defendants to stop awarding grants for sepsis experiments on non-human animals.

For lawyers, this may seem like a standard question of administrative law. However, for scientists and researchers, targeting sepsis experiments may be a controversial choice. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1.7 million adults in the United States (US) develop sepsis each year, and at least 350,000 of those adults “die during their hospitalization or are discharged to hospice.” The likelihood of recovery depends on how quickly the signs of sepsis are recognized, as well as how quickly treatments are administered. Even after recovering from sepsis, patients can still experience post-sepsis syndrome. Nearly 50% of sepsis survivors experience physical, cognitive, or psychological problems following hospitalization, and the cause is not well understood. Research over the last two decades have failed to produce drugs that adequately address the human body’s immune response to sepsis. While this lack of effective treatment provides a reason for PETA to question the rationality of using non-human animals in this research, it also provides a reason for scientists to continue pursuing animal-sepsis experiments – an effective treatment is needed for this deadly disease.

Following the submission of PETA’s Complaint, the NIH moved to dismiss the case and questioned PETA’s legal standing under Article III of the US Constitution as well as the “legal sufficiency of the complaint.” See page 9 of the Memorandum Opinion. In short, the Court dismissed Count Two of PETA’s Complaint because, “as a matter of law, the Court cannot construe a generalized description of a potential course of conduct as a final agency action.” See page 11 of the Memorandum Opinion. Count Two concerned PETA’s concern with NIH’s “policy, pattern and practice of approving grants” for animal-sepsis experiments. See paragraph 98 of the Complaint. Although Count Two was dismissed, the Court ordered Defendants to answer the remaining allegations in the Complaint. In their Answer, Defendants denied most of the allegations or claimed that the allegations were unduly vague.

The Court also granted PETA’s request for extra-record evidence to supplement the information already included in the record. When agency actions are challenged under the APA, the Court considers the information that was available to the agency when the decision was made. Therefore, the Court is limited to evaluating the agency’s decision based on the record that already exists, rather than new information. However, the Court can consider extra-record evidence in few circumstances. In this matter, the Court determined that there were scientific questions that were not adequately explained by the existing record and, therefore, granted the following documents into evidence: the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council Working Group on Sepsis Final Report of 2019, the Seok Study of 2013, the Declaration of Elisabeth Custalow, Esq., and the Declaration of Dr. Nathan Dean Nielsen, M.D., M.Sc., among other documents. See pages 4–11 of the Memorandum Order.

The most recent submission to the Court was PETA’s request for summary judgment, which was filed on December 17, 2025. The Court now must determine whether the evidence, when “viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, is sufficient to allow a reasonable [trier of fact] to return a verdict in that party’s favor.” See page 19 of the Memorandum in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment. PETA argues that even if Defendants tried to prove the merits of the animal-sepsis experiments outlined in the Complaint, they would fail “because there is no work they could show that could rationally support these experiments.” See page 20 of the Memorandum in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment. Therefore, PETA argues that the Court “can, and should, find these actions to be arbitrary and capricious.” Id.

This lawsuit has been pending for four years. The Court has already ruled that an animal advocacy group, such as PETA, has standing to sue a federal agency based on the time, money, and other resources it has spent trying to advance its cause. One remaining question is whether a court can decide which areas of science are worth pursuing under the APA. PETA may argue that courts should be able to review such decisions when federal agencies spend taxpayer money on experiments that, as PETA alleges in this litigation, have failed to produce benefits for human patients while causing unnecessary suffering to non-human animals. On the other hand, NIH may argue that courts should not determine which scientific research is worth pursuing because doing so may cause every grant issued by the NIH to be at risk of judicial review.

This is an important case to keep tabs on; however, take note, the District Court’s opinion will likely be appealed. It is also worth noting that, amid this case, alternatives to animal testing continue to be discussed at the legislative level and are another way to address the ongoing harm to animals in research.

The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Johns Hopkins University or Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.