• CBS Evening News’ “Eye on America” just featured White Coat Waste’s campaign to defund Monkey Island and other taxpayer-funded animal labs.
• WCW’s newest investigation exposes how, under Director Jay Bhattacharya and Deputy Director Nicole Kleinstreuer, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) continues to fund Monkey Island, renew other Fauci-era primate labs, and issue millions for brand-new monkey experiments.
• Newly released documents secured by WCW through the Freedom of Information Act detail new multimillion-dollar grants for primate experiments, including to infect baby monkeys with HIV-like viruses, addict monkeys to cocaine, nicotine, and alcohol, and strap pint-sized ice cream containers full of mosquitoes strapped to monkeys’ bare skin.
• WCW’s analyses of NIH spending databases found nearly 200 new grants and contracts awarded under Bhattacharya and Kleinstreuer that are definitely, or potentially, funding primate experiments.
• Starting under the first Trump administration, WCW’s campaigns have eliminated primate testing at the Department of Veterans Affairs and dramatically reduced it at the Food and Drug Administration. The NIH is an outlier.

A new CBS Evening News “Eye on America” special features White Coat Waste’s investigations, Congressional testimony, and campaigns to expose and defund Dr. Fauci’s Monkey Island and billions in other taxpayer-funded animal experiments.

Here’s the latest from the frontlines:

In March 2025, White Coat Waste uncovered that the National Institutes of Health renewed its funding for Monkey Island off the coast of South Carolina. For years, we’ve been documenting how over 3,700 NIH-owned primates are bred and held on the island before being sent to some of the government’s most painful and deadly labs. 

The $4.1 million cash infusion from the Trump NIH occurred during Matthew Memoli’s temporary leadership of the agency. Memoli is a former Fauci colleague who is now the NIH’s second-in-command. 

In April, after longtime WCW supporter Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was confirmed as the new NIH Director, he assured us that the agency would end all testing on primates, cats, and dogs. 

Instead, we’ve been documenting the NIH’s doubling down on primate experiments under Bhattacharya and Fauci-loving ‘animal testing czar’ Nicole Kleinstreuer, who insisted, “We have no intention of just phasing out animal studies overnight.” 

Bhattacharya and Kleinstreuer have failed to shut down a horrendous primate lab in their own NIH headquarters. A years-long WCW campaign reveals how this lab has wasted over $60 million burning monkeys’ brains to damage the area that controls fear, chaining them by their necks in tiny cages, and recording them as they’re tormented with toy snakes and spiders. 

There’s also Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory (RML) in Hamilton, Montana, where we’ve exposed maximum pain experiments on primates infected with viruses like Ebola and left to suffer and die without pain relief.  

Bhattacharya recently visited the facility—media reports state that he toured the facility’s new animal labs and expressed support for RML. 

This monkey was infected with an Ebola-like virus for a deadly maximum pain experiment at the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Lab

Unfortunately, Bhattacharya and Kleinstreuer aren’t just renewing existing primate experiments from the Biden administration and Fauci era.  

WCW has identified and is actively investigating nearly 200 brand-new grants and contracts awarded during their tenure, confirmed to be or potentially funding cruel testing on monkeys in the U.S. and foreign countries. 

We’ve begun to receive documents through the Freedom of Information Act that shed light on some of these multimillion-dollar monkey experiments.

On June 10, 2025, Fauci’s former NIH division—now run by another gain-of-function animal experimenter named Jeffrey Taubenberger, who helped cover up the Wuhan lab leak—doled out a five-year, $5.2 million grant to primate experimenters at Emory University. 

With our tax money, NIH-funded experimenters will tear 50 infant monkeys away from their mothers and infect them with an HIV-like virus. According to the grant documents, the monkeys will exhibit “AIDS-like” symptoms, including infections, diarrhea, and weight loss. After a year of suffering through testing, including exposure to various experimental treatments, any remaining young monkeys will be killed and dissected. 

On July 23, 2025, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases also dished out $3.2 million for a five-year grant to University of California-Davis for a primate experimentation collaboration with Oregon Health & Science University.  

Records we obtained reveal that 42 monkeys will be isolated in cages, drugged, and forced to endure infected mosquitoes feeding on them through pint-sized ice cream containers strapped to their skin. The experiments will test already-FDA-approved vaccines for chikungunya, a disease that does not exist locally in the U.S. 

The grant application explains that the monkeys may suffer from fevers, neurological symptoms, and pain before ultimately being killed. 

Another new NIH grant issued on August 7, 2025, dedicates $2.5 million to a new experiment at Wake Forest University that will addict monkeys to alcohol, nicotine, and cocaine at the same time. 

According to grant documents obtained by WCW through FOIA, up to 23 monkeys will have catheters implanted and be locked in restraint chairs as they press levers to inject cocktails of these drugs directly into their veins. 

Is this how you want your money spent?   

Fortunately, our Monkey Island investigation and campaign has prompted Congress to demand action and accountability. 

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives committee that controls the NIH budget included WCW-backed language in the agency’s 2026 spending bill, expressing concern about Monkey Island.  

Senate DOGE Caucus Chair Joni Ernst (R-IA) also posted on X, “This is bananas! I’m working with @WhiteCoatWaste to stop this monkey business and defund Dr. Fauci’s monkey island.” 

WCW’s campaigns have eliminated primate testing at the Department of Veterans Affairs and dramatically reduced it at the Food and Drug Administration.  The NIH is an outlier. 

The solution to ending the NIH’s monkey business is simple: