Since 1994, Eric has been centrally involved with unprecedented accomplishments and regulatory action regarding animal experimentation, open records, and the landmark criminal animal cruelty case filed against Charles River Laboratories (which reached the New Mexico Supreme Court). His work has been featured in hundreds of news articles, including dozens published since 2019 in outlets such as the Washington Post, National Geographic, Science, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal.

In multiple investigations, Eric has researched and analyzed laws regarding animal welfare, whistleblower protection, data integrity, and the Freedom of Information Act to achieve international media coverage and help force multiple animal abusers out of business, including the world’s largest chimpanzee lab; the longest-tenured supplier of chinchillas for research; and one of the world’s largest suppliers of animal-derived antibodies. After he testified before Congress in March 2000—during which he called for an end to chimpanzee experimentation—the National Institutes of Health permanently revoked all federal funding for the Coulston Foundation (the world’s largest chimp lab), and Congress initiated a broad investigation of NIH’s management of billions of dollars in grant funding.

Eric has also been significantly involved in successful lawsuits against the U.S. Air Force; the NIH; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Envigo. The Air Force lawsuit helped launch Save the Chimps, while the chimpanzee medical records he pried from the NIH revealed for the first time the extensive suffering of chimpanzees in research, and led to the groundbreaking 2011 McClatchy Newspapers Special Report “Chimps: Life in the Lab.”

When he was at the Animal Welfare Institute, Eric conducted research, investigations, and media outreach regarding two of the largest suppliers of chinchillas for experimentation, Daniel J. Moulton dba Chinchilla and Jan Ryerson dba Ryerson Chinchilla. After damning exposés in Science magazine and National Geographic, for which Eric provided information and documentation, both facilities went out of business, with the USDA holding a hearing in 2021 regarding Moulton that resulted in permanent license revocation. In March 2025, Eric presented Moulton as a case study of USDA inaction to an animal law class at the University of Oklahoma.

Eric has investigated, analyzed, written about, and spoken to animal law and public policy classes as well as the general public about animal experimentation, the campaign to end invasive chimpanzee research, the importance of media in effecting change, obtaining public records, enforcement of animal welfare laws, and financial incentives driving the primate trade.

Click below to see excerpts from, and links to, various documents, as well as dozens of excerpts from hundreds of news articles that have covered Eric’s work involving:

• chimpanzees in research;

• the FDA Good Laboratory Practice regulations;

• the Freedom of Information Act;

• the permanent USDA license revocations of Santa Cruz Biotechnology and Moulton Chinchilla;

• the USDA’s enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act;

• the USDA’s lack of transparency;

• financial incentives driving the primate trade;

• issues with the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.