• Last year, White Coat Waste (WCW) submitted a complaint to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) against the University of Rochester (UR) for violating federal transparency law by mutilating kittens’ eyeballs with taxpayer dollars and failing to disclose it properly to the public.
• Now, documents obtained by WCW through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal that white coats at UR are currently conducting parallel experiments on monkeys costing taxpayers $8.4 million; and once again broke the same federal law while doing so.
• Experiments include blinding them with lasers and toxic injections, depriving them of water to force compliance, and ultimately killing and discarding them.
• Given the new Trump Administration and its Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) relentless efforts to cut wasteful spending, we’re pushing to put this monkey and cat torture on the chopping block.

In 2024, White Coat Waste (WCW) exposed a tax-funded lab at the University of Rochester (UR) for breaking federal transparency laws while they mutilated the eyes of helpless kittens and implanted metal rods in their skulls for decades. WCW filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Now, WCW has uncovered further proof that the NIH is refusing to hold university white coats accountable for torturing animals and breaking the law.

Through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), WCW received hundreds of pages detailing how white coats at the University of Rochester are conducting brutal eyeball experiments on monkeys: 

• EYES MAIMED: Monkeys with perfectly good vision have it intentionally damaged with injections and lasers 

• WATER DEPRIVED: To get the monkeys to comply with their vision tests, white coats deprive them of water and coerce them for a sip during the grueling sessions.  

• DISCARDED LIKE TRASH: Killed, dissected, eyeballs removed, on to the next…

Diagrams of experiments found in white coats’ lab note

For over a decade, NIH–funded white coats at the UR have been disfiguring the eyes of monkeys, forcing them into vision loss or impairment by way of toxic injections and intense laser beams.

Then, strapped down in a restraint chair, the monkeys are forced to conduct vision tests in exchange for WATER. They’re deprived of hydration before experiments begin to ensure they will comply.  

Win the game? You can have a drink. Lose the game? Endure an irritating noise and try again. 

Once the monkeys are no longer of use to the callous white coats, they are killed via overdose, sliced open, have their eyeballs extracted from their lifeless bodies, and tossed away like garbage.

And once again, WCW caught the university breaking federal transparency law by bragging to the public about their findings and failing to disclose how much taxpayer funding they wasted torturing these monkeys. Which, by the way, is over $8.4 million. We just filed a federal complaint that they be defunded.

Each monkey they kill costs roughly “$6k a piece”…

The NIH still has yet to respond to WCW’s 2024 federal complaint against the University of Rochester’s use of taxpayer dollars to mutilate cats; making it clear to the public that we cannot rely on them to hold the negligent white coats accountable.

These NIH-funded white coats are not just torturing animals with our tax dollars; they are flagrantly breaking federal law while doing so.

WCW will continue to uncover and expose the US government’s heinous pattern of squandering taxpayer dollars on university white coats who show no regard for animal suffering and consistently fail to follow the law.

Cutting all funding for NIH’s cruel, wasteful animal experiments is on the top of our priority list for the Trump Administration and DOGE.