Since the White Coat Waste Project first exposed the National Institutes of Health’s cruel in-house dog labs back in 2016 and launched a bipartisan campaign to shut them down, the NIH’s abuse of dogs in the Beltway has been cut by a staggering 95 percent. Now, we’re working with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to cut NIH’s in-house canine and kitten cruelty by a full 100 percent.  

Working with WCW, Waste Warrior Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) has just introduced a bipartisan amendment to the NIH’s 2024 spending bill to defund the NIH’s painful in-house experimentation on dogs and cats.   

The amendment is being cosponsored by Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV)–who has led on this issue with WCW since 2016 and helped shut down dog and cat tests at the VA—as well as Troy Nehls (R-TX), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).  

We’re proud that this WCW-backed amendment is one of 10 bipartisan ones out of over 300 total amendments that were submitted for the NIH spending bill (including others we support to crack down on NIH animal tests)!  The bill is expected to be voted on by the full House next week. 

When our effort began in 2016, the NIH was strapping capsules full of biting sandflies to beagles’ bare skin in painful experiments and intentionally withholding pain relief. WCW obtained the documents and the disturbing pictures to prove it. 

Those tests have since been ended (at least in-house), but last year, we discovered that another NIH in-house lab bought beagles from the disgraced Envigo puppy mill for ongoing septic shock experiments.  

As we described in a recent op-ed co-authored by WCW and Rep. Steube, in the taxpayer-funded tests, dozens of puppies’ throats are cut open and infectious bacteria are forced into the dogs’ lungs to cause pneumonia. Experimenters then bleed out the beagles, give them transfusions, and see how long the sick and traumatized dogs can survive. NIH white coats then kill any dog who lives longer than four days. 

 As we’ve detailed in columns co-authored with Rep. Steube and Rep. Titus, the NIH is lagging behind other federal agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs on efforts to cut wasteful and unnecessary dog testing.   

To our knowledge, the septic shock experiments are the only in-house dog or cat tests happening inside the NIH’s own labs.  This new amendment could zero them out. 

A 2022 national poll found that 73% of taxpayers across all parties want to cut funding for the NIH’s cruelty to canines.   

We applaud Reps. Steube, Titus, Nehls, Moskowitz, and Fitzpatrick for their outstanding leadership on bipartisan efforts to cut the NIH’s taxpayer-funded cruelty to kittens and canines in labs.