• After a years-long campaign by White Coat Waste (WCW), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will become the first federal agency in U.S. history to eliminate primate testing—the direct result of WCW’s investigations, shutdown strategy, and legislative leadership.
• Since 2019, WCW has been exposing the VA’s cruel and wasteful experiments on primates and successfully united a bipartisan Congressional coalition to defund them.
• In tests that cost taxpayers at least $28 million, VA experimenters injected primates with angel dust, damaged their brains, and crushed their spinal cords to cripple them. 
• WCW’s investigation uncovered exclusive videos and photos showing paralyzed monkeys strapped into restraint devices and forced to run on treadmills.  
• In 2019, WCW worked with Congress to enact the first law restricting VA funding for primate labs.
• In 2024, after WCW revealed the San Diego VA lab’s grisly monkey tests, Congress passed a stronger version of our legislation—this time with a hard 2026 deadline to eliminate all dog, cat, and primate testing.
• WCW campaigns had already ended dog and cat testing at the VA—and in May 2025, Trump’s VA Secretary told Congress the agency was ahead of schedule on ending primate tests, too.
• Legacy animal rights activists opposed our historic, highly effective campaign to eliminate the VA’s experiments on dogs, cats, and primates—and not one of them has shut down a government primate lab in 10 years. 

The VA’s primate testing is ending—and it’s ending because White Coat Waste made it impossible for it to continue.

Since 2019, WCW has been exposing the VA’s cruel and wasteful experiments on primates and successfully united a bipartisan Congressional coalition to defund them. That year, WCW worked with Congress to enact the first-ever spending legislation restricting VA funding for primate labs.

Following our campaign and lobbying, in 2021 WCW exposed and shut down spinal cord injury experiments on monkeys taking place at the West Haven, Connecticut VA, and ended the Minneapolis VA’s angel dust experiments on primates. WCW’s campaign also caused the cancellation of VA tests that planned to feed primates unhealthy diets to induce eye disorders.



But veterinary records, experimental protocols, videos, and photos exclusively uncovered by WCW exposed the ongoing torture at the San Diego VA. Working with NIH-funded University of California labs, San Diego VA experimenters paralyzed dozens of monkeys, locked them in restraint devices, and forced them to run on treadmills—before killing them.

Photos of the San Diego VA’s spinal cord injury experiments on primates uncovered by White Coat Waste’s investigation.

These never-before-seen records triggered national outrage and gave Congress the ammunition needed to strengthen our legislation. In 2024, lawmakers responded with a hard deadline to shut down every VA test on dogs, cats, and primates.

We worked with Congress to strengthen the law to direct the VA to meet a hard 2026 deadline for the complete elimination of all tests on primates, as well as cruel test on dogs and cats (which WCW has already shut down in recent years). WCW brought together a bipartisan Congressional coalition led by Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV), Army veteran Brian Mast (R-FL), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), John Carter (R-TX), and the Senate Appropriations Committee’s VA funding panel.

Then, last month, in May 2025, the Trump Administration’s VA Secretary Doug Collins told Rep. Nancy Mace during a Congressional hearing that the agency was ahead of schedule on ending its primate tests.

A February 2025 VA report to Congress obtained by WCW shows the V.A. plans to end its primate tests by the end of June 2025.

👏Thank you @SecVetAffairs & @RepNancyMace!

Following years of work by WCW & Rep. Mace, Sec. Collins just confirmed the VA is on track to end primate testing before Congress’s 2026 deadline

The VA previously cut all dog & cat tests after a WCW campaign & action by Trump 45 pic.twitter.com/iJzD1gQI69

— White Coat Waste (@WhiteCoatWaste) May 15, 2025

White Coat Waste blew the whistle, shut down the labs, and led the campaign to pass the first law in U.S. history to eliminate primate testing—something no other group has ever done.

Meanwhile, legacy animal rights activists criticized and opposed our historic, highly effective campaign to eliminate the VA’s experiments on dogs, cats, and primates.

For the first time in U.S. history, a federal agency is going out of the monkey business—because WCW made it happen.