Coffee…nicotine…sugar…whatever it may be, an addiction is hard to break. And no addiction is harder for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to break than their addiction to wasteful spending on animal experiments — even when it means they continue to send our tax dollars to Vladimir Putin’s fiendish cat labs.

But White Coat Waste Project (WCW) and Congress are staging an intervention.

Excerpt from Rep. Lisa McClain’s letter to President Biden (letter below)

In case you missed it, back in March, WCW exposed that U.S. taxpayers were funding wasteful, unnecessary, and cruel experiments on cats by white coats at the Kremlin-run Pavlov Institute of Physiology. Our investigation prompted an INSTANT IMPACT! Members of Congress, led by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), sent a letter to President Biden, demanding the immediate cancelation of grants to Russian labs. And following WCW lobbying and bipartisan pressure from lawmakers, the House Appropriations Committee voted to defund all animal labs in Russia, China, and other countries deemed ‘foreign adversaries.’

Then, in June, the White House announced that the government would “wind down […] research collaborations in the fields of science and technology with Russian government-affiliated research institutions.”

Yet, it’s unclear whether the NIH has taken any action to stop funding Russian animal labs.

Now, Rep. McClain, along with nine colleagues, are giving the NIH a nudge in the right direction. In a new letter to Lawrence Tabak, Acting Director of NIH, the lawmakers cite WCW’s investigation and demand information on what steps — if any — the NIH has taken to defund Russian animal labs.

Actual illustration of the Russian cat experiment.
WCW exposed how NIH shipped U.S. tax dollars to a Kremlin-run lab, where Russian white coats electrocute ‘zombie cats’ to make them move on treadmills.

Rep. McClain’s letter was also signed by Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL), Bill Posey (R-FL), Greg Steube (R-FL), Lance Gooden (R-TX), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA).

If it seems strange that the NIH seems to be operating directly against White House policy, it wouldn’t be the first time. Remember when President Obama banned gain-of-function research (bravo!)…and then Dr. Fauci funded it anyway? Yeah…thanks for that.

Read the letter in full below, and then urge your Member of Congress to cosponsor the AFAR Act! This critical legislation would defund all animal labs in countries deemed foreign adversaries. It’s supported by WCW, a majority of Americans, and common sense.