FOIA Docs Expose NIH-Approved Dog Experiments Amid Pledge to End Animal Testing

NIH announced it will officially phase out funding for animal testing after an investigation and pressure campaign from the White Coat Waste Project (WCWP). WCWP responded with a statement indicating that the NIH is blaming “legal constraints” and a lack of alternatives for the delay in defunding these experiments that have been described as “barbaric.” WCWP has criticized NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and the NIH for not laying out a timetable for action as the EPA and Pentagon have done. The agency has recently renewed funding for animal laboratories.

A WCWP investigation found that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) authorized funding for dog breeding labs and other labs for animal experiments. WCWP first exposed “Beagle-Gate” in 2021, which was experiments authorized by Dr. Anthony Fauci involving the cutting of beagle vocal cords so their screams wouldn’t be heard while researchers allowed sand flies to “eat the dogs alive.” In May, Dr. Bhattacharya announced that NIH would expand “human-based science” while cutting animal testing. Dr. Bhattacharya said the agency would end all beagle experiments on the NIH campus. The WCWP shows the NIH has funded new external beagle labs.

“NIH has renewed Fauci-era funding for these labs under Bhattacharya’s watch. The Bhattacharya-Kleinstreuer NIH has also bankrolled millions in brand new dog experiments, despite having full authority to cut active grants and prohibit new ones,” WCWP wrote in a blog post. “That’s exactly what other Trump-aligned agencies are already doing—in direct coordination with White Coat Waste campaigns.”

The NIH renewed funding for the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) lab that intentionally breeds dogs with painful diseases like muscular dystrophy. FOIA requests obtained by WCWP show 620 dogs are lined up to be bred for experiments in this lab.

“The dogs receive injections directly into their eyeballs, muscles, and hearts, are sliced open for their muscles to be exposed and electroshocked, and have holes and screws drilled into their skulls, while some are killed by being bled out,” the WCWP blog explains.

The dogs experience symptoms like rapid weight loss, difficulty swallowing, muscle atrophy, respiratory and cardiac complications, dermatitis, fever, hernia, bacterial infection, bone fractures, lymphoma, and sarcoma. While experiencing these severe conditions, the dogs are required to walk on treadmills and through mazes. The dogs are also subjected to visual testing trials according to the FOIA documents.

WCWP says the latest promise by Dr. Bhattacharya and NIH needs to have a real phase-out plan without excuses. Dr. Bhattacharya and NIH said in June that animal testing is necessary and can’t be phased out without appropriate alternatives. Nicole Kleinstreuer, NIH Acting Deputy Director, said in June that the agency is not going to phase out animal testing overnight. ”We have no intention of just phasing out animal studies overnight. We know that animal studies are still very important and often scientifically justified.”

Critics argue that this type of testing is cruel, ineffective, and a wasteful use of taxpayer resources. A 2023 research review stated, “The failure rate for the translation of drugs from animal testing to human treatments remains at over 92%, where it has been for the past few decades. The majority of these failures are due to unexpected toxicity — that is, safety issues revealed in human trials that were not apparent in animal tests — or lack of efficacy.”

WCWP is celebrating moves made by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to end animal testing within these agencies. WCWP uncovered $57 million in active dog and cat experiments funded by the Pentagon, which Hegseth has begun cutting after WCWP brought these experiments to light.

“Directly crediting White Coat Waste’s investigations, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken a machete to millions in wasteful and barbaric U.S. Army-funded experiments on dogs and cats in labs worldwide,” said Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President at WCWP. “But, while the Pentagon is summarily slashing spending on senseless pet abuse, we’ve exposed that under Director Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH is renewing and expanding Fauci-era horrors—like inducing heart failure in kittens and injecting puppies with cocaine—and doling out millions more in brand-new grants for deadly dog labs. As the group that first uncovered Dr. Fauci’s taxpayer-funded beagle and kitten torture, White Coat Waste is proud to unite bipartisan lawmakers to finally end his legacy of cruelty in labs in the US and overseas. President Trump wants to cut the NIH’s bloated $48 billion budget by 40 percent, and defunding NIH’s painful pet experiments—like his Pentagon has already done—is an easy win against waste. The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”

The EPA announced in April that it would begin phasing out animal testing funded by the agency, a return to a policy from the first Trump administration that was abandoned during Joe Biden’s presidency. The agency announced an adoption program for the animals that were formerly used in these experiments, including zebrafish and rats. The program will eventually expand to include rabbits and mice.

The FDA also announced in April that its animal testing requirement for monoclonal antibodies and some other drugs will be “reduced, refined, or potentially replaced using a range of approaches.” The approaches mentioned in the press release include “AI-based computational models of toxicity and cell lines and organoid toxicity testing.”

Anis Barmada, a biomedical researcher at Yale School of Medicine who utilizes animal testing models, wrote an op-ed for The Hill criticizing the latest moves by government agencies to move away from animal models. Barmada states that animal testing is vital for scientific discovery and points to animal welfare policies dating back to 1900 as evidence that research can be conducted ethically.

He added that “for at least a decade, all grant proposals have had to include consideration of alternative approaches, scientific justification of animal use, and detailed protocols to minimize their distress. Institutions’ protocols are also regularly reviewed for accreditation.”

However, groups like WCWP will point to many examples of studies that have been approved during this time period that involve cruel, unnecessary treatment of laboratory animals, including shoving marbles up cat rectums. Elizabeth Baker, director of research policy for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, spoke at a February House Committee hearing and explained one NIH-funded study in which dogs are stabbed in the hearts with devices and required to run on treadmills until they die. Baker said the NIH continues to provide $15 million in funding to this single experiment.