Millions of U.S. Tax Dollars Via NIH Still Funding Cruel Lab Experiments in

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If you live in one of America’s estimated 65 million homes that have one or more dogs as family pets, what you are about to read on how your federal tax dollars are being spent should make you weep. And it should make you angry enough to “see red” and do something about it.

The folks at White Coat Waste, a trans-partisan non-profit advocacy group based in the nation’s capital, earlier this week released a new study documenting that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is “still shipping U.S. tax dollars to dozens of Chinese animal labs… including labs torturing beagles as young as one day old.”

“Documents uncovered through WCW’s investigation detail how NIH-funded labs in China are killing Beagles as young as one day old and severing Beagle puppies’ spinal cords. In one published experiment, white coats at a Chinese government lab write that ‘the dogs were executed,’” WCW continued.

Much of the experiments include severing the animal’s spine, thus rendering its back legs useless and forcing the poor creature to drag itself around using only its front legs. Once the animal’s usefulness in the experiment is past, it is, to use the Chinese lab’s designation, “executed.”

To see just how horrendously cruel such experiments are using Beagles and other animals such as monkeys and cats, check out this video that WCW made public in conjunction with its new study.

Severing the spine cannot be repaired, so the experiment renders the dog permanently disabled and headed to execution, or, excuse me, being euthanized. Once the creature is dead, according to one of the documents uncovered by WCW, “esophageal tissues are harvested.”

As an example of this kind of cruelty that U.S. taxpayers are funding, WCW reported the following: “Among the taxpayer-funded canine cruelty we uncovered is an active $124,200 NIH contract for completely unnecessary experimental drug testing on dogs at a Chinese lab called ‘Pharmaron.’ In all, this Chinese animal lab is currently receiving over $2 million in tax money for wasteful tests on dogs, primates, and other animals.”

Bipartisan legislation is currently before Congress to stop sending U.S. funding by NIH to labs that conduct animal experiments. The “Preventing Animal Abuse and Waste Act” (H.R. 7958) was introduced by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) and is currently co-sponsored by them and nine House colleagues.

Anthony Belloti, WCW’s Founder and President, said in a statement about the proposal: “A supermajority of taxpayers across the political spectrum—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike—agree that we shouldn’t be forced to fund wasteful and dangerous experiments on dogs and other animals in Chinese labs, especially those linked to the Communist Party and military. This is common sense and we’re urging Congress to swiftly pass bipartisan legislation to defund China’s unaccountable animal labs once and for all. The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”