Victory: WCW Saves the #Stokes7 & Ends ALL VA cat testing

Posted by Allison McDonald
07 August 2024 | Blog, Featured


  • Following a WCW campaign, the Department of Veterans Affairs has canceled a wasteful plan for painful medical device experiments in which seven cats—the Stokes 7—would have wiring implanted into their legs and backs, risking paralysis and death.
  • Since WCW first exposed the Stokes 7 in July 2023, WCW has lobbied Congress, ran billboards, TV, and online ads that reached over 4 million taxpayers, and drove over 2,000 phone calls and 338,000 letters from pet owners to Capitol Hill, the VA, and the White House to stop the experiment.
  • After years of criticism from WCW, taxpayers, and Congress, the VA has finally admitted the $50,000 cat tests are unnecessary even though Biden VA Secretary Denis McDonough personally signed off on them and the VA claimed it was “necessary, as there is no other viable model available” and that it “is a justified use of taxpayer funds.”
  • This WCW victory marks the end of all dog and cat testing at the VA.
  • WCW is the only animal protection organization to shut down federal feline labs in at least 40 years.


White Coat Waste (WCW) is a project to get the government out of the cat testing business.  In May, we exposed and exterminated a misguided plan by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to force-feed ten tiny kittens scrambled mouse brains and then kill the healthy cats.

 

Now, following a WCW investigation and vigorous campaign, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has canceled a wasteful plan for painful medical device experiments in which seven cats—the Stokes 7—would have wiring implanted into their legs and backs, risking paralysis and death.

Here’s how we did it: 

Since 2016, WCW has been leading efforts to find, expose, and defund the VA’s experiments on dogs, cats, and primates. In 2021, the VA ended its last active cat experiments following a years-long WCW grassroots and lobbying campaign.   

Due to our efforts, VA labs in Los Angeles, Louisville, and Cleveland ended all their cat experiments (like drilling into their skulls, crippling them, and forcing them to run on treadmills).  Our successful work to create a VA lab animal adoption policy also led to the retirement of some of the survivors, like the Stokes Sisters. 

In 2022 and 2023, not a single cat was confined or abused in any of the VA’s labs. 

Then, last year, we exposed how VA Secretary Denis McDonough was trying to restart cat testing at the notorious Stokes VA lab in Cleveland, Ohio.

Documents we obtained showed that McDonough personally greenlit an invasive, unnecessary, and illegal $50,000 medical device test in which seven cats (the #Stokes7) would have wiring implanted into their legs and backs, risking pain, paralysis, and death.

The VA even ghoulishly wrote in its proposal that it specifically chose cats for this painful experiment because of how playful they are!

We immediately rallied Democrats and Republicans in Congress like Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Dina Titus (D-NV) to join WCW and call out McDonough’s cruel and wasteful cat testing plan, citing our investigation.

Our members and supporters also fired off hundreds of thousands of calls and emails to the VA, White House, and Congress.

We’ve also been running TV ads and billboards urging the Biden Administration to cancel the cat tests.

(c) Fox 8 News

This March, we worked with Congress to enact historic legislation directing the VA to eliminate all testing on cats, dogs, and primates by 2026. But the VA continued its efforts to ram through the testing on the Stokes7 before the deadline.

The VA responded to concerns from Congress and the press with lies and misinformation to defend the indefensible cat experimentation scheme, claiming “The work with adult cats was found to be necessary, as there is no other viable model available” and, “This experiment is a justified use of taxpayer funds.” 

Now, following WCW’s campaign, the VA has done an about-face, canceling the cat testing plans and admitting alternatives can be used instead.

We saved the Stokes 7 and ended the VA’s entire kitten testing program. We’ve also shut down all of the VA’s testing on dogs.

Help us send ALL of Uncle Sam’s painful cat experiments to the litter box of history!

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