Earlier this year, we exposed how the National Institutes of Health has been shipping tens of millions of your tax dollars each year to foreign countries for wasteful and cruel animal experiments. Our Worldwide Waste investigation revealed how over 350 labs in 50 countries—including China and Russia—are authorized by the NIH to receive foreign aid for animal tests.

Thanks to an important new bill, that could change.

Congresswoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) has introduced a bill called the Accountability in Foreign Animal Research (AFAR) Act to prohibit tax dollars from funding animal experiments in countries that have been deemed foreign adversaries by the U.S. government. Currently, that list includes China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea.

Right now, a total of 31 labs in China and Russia have permission to receive tax money from the NIH specifically for animal experiments. This list includes the notorious Wuhan Institute of Virology, which WCW first exposed as an NIH-funded lab. Many experts now believe these reckless coronavirus gain-of-function experiments on animals caused the COVID pandemic.

If the AFAR Act becomes law, they would all be disqualified from getting our cash to abuse animals in cruel, outdated and dangerous experiments.

Reps. Fred Keller (R-PA), Rick Allen (R-GA), Randy Weber (R-TX), Rick Crawford (R-AR), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Bill Posey (R-FL), Ralph Norman (R-SC), Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Brian Mast (R-FL) and Yvette Herrell (R-NM) joined Rep. McClain as original cosponsors of the legislation.

This is the latest effort by Congress to crack down on this waste and abuse overseas following WCW’s exposé.

This is what taxpayers want, too. A February 2021 poll of 1,000 taxpayers by Lincoln Park Strategies found that 61% of Republicans and Democrats want to cut funding for animal testing in foreign countries.

What is Fauci doing?!? American tax dollars…
???????? should not fund animal cruelty.
???????? should not fund labs in Russia and China.
???????? should DEFINITELY NOT fund animal cruelty in Russian and Chinese labs.https://t.co/DaXMiraefz

— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) October 17, 2021