Actual illustration of a restrained cat on a hydraulic table at the Pitt lab.

• WCW’s new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) investigation reveals horrifying NIH-funded kitten tests at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt).
• Cats are forced to become nauseous from bright lights and electric shocks.  Others are restrained to a hydraulic table and spun hundreds of times for motion sickness “research.”
• Pitt specifically targets female kittens because they’re more “amenable” to long periods of restraint.
• Some cats have their brains and spinal cords mutilated—essentially zombifying them.
• NIH has been funding these lethal experiments for over 30 years costing taxpayers $1.5M.
• WCW is on a mission to obliterate taxpayer-funded cat testing. No other animal protection organization has shut down federal feline labs in 40 years.

White Coat Waste recently exposed a Pitt laboratory where cats are electro-shocked and forced to defecate marbles.

Our new FOIA investigation reveals Pitt killed hundreds of cats after forcing felines to suffer intense motion sickness.  

And it’s been funded by NIH for decades.

They pump a feline’s stomach with toxic compounds. And fire off electrodes to stimulate the part of her brain that causes motion sickness.  

Worst of all: they restrain female cats to a hydraulic table and spin and tilt them around, hoping they vomit.

Before the torture begins, cats are trained to be kept restrained for hours a day and weeks at a time. Pitt white coats know they’ve won when the cats eventually lose hope and no longer protest the uncomfortable position.

Apparently, the female gender is more “amenable” to long periods of restraint. That’s why the experimenters using female cats.  

These kittens are between four and six months old.

The hydraulic table tilts and turns the cats on three different axes: side to side, up and down, and 360 degrees—one full turn in five seconds.  

To intensify motion sickness, NIH-funded white coats stress her eyes with bright flashing lights. They pump copper sulfate into her stomach. Each kitten endures this abuse for hours at a time.

Somehow, it gets even more sinister. Pitt white coats zombify healthy kittens and subject them to the same nightmarish fate.  

“Decerebration” is a technique to cut off a cat’s brain function while she’s still alive. They sever or remove parts of her brain. You might recall this barbaric procedure from our winning campaigns at the Louisville Veterans Affairs and NIH’s Russian cat lab. 

Pitt has decerebrated countless healthy kittens. Baby cats are pinned up by their head, hips, and spine. Their brainstems are lacerated, rendering them zombified.

The victims are also injected with a chemical that fully paralyzes them.

Once zombified, a device is drilled into the kitten’s skull. Her head is tethered to a hydraulic tilt table. She’s spun up, down, around, side-to-side, and “wobbled.”  

For 8-12 hours…or even longer.

This isn’t just cruel. It’s sheer government waste.  

In one experiment, Pitt claims the sole purpose of NIH funding is to compare how cats differ from monkeys after being spun and tilted around.  

Is this how you want your money spent?

WCW is on a mission to obliterate taxpayer-funded cat testing. We take pride in exposing and closing U.S. government cat labs, like USDA’s Kitten Slaughterhouse and UC Davis’s Kitten Slaughterhouse 2.0.  

Up next? Ending NIH’s nauseating kitten torture at Pitt.