• A new White Coat Waste (WCW) analysis of government spending data shows that, under Director Jay Bhattacharya and ‘animal testing czar’ Nicole Kleinstreuer, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) continues to dole out tens of millions in new funding to wasteful monkey labs, despite Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s pledges to end primate testing. 
• The NIH has already wasted over $30 million on new funding for primate experiments in Fiscal Year 2026, including over $14 million since RFK’s December pledge to completely end the practice. 
• The recently renewed NIH grant funding is being wasted on 40 different projects, including injecting monkeys with mRNA vaccines, force-feeding them experimental drugs, drilling into their skulls, performing experimental organ transplants, and infecting them with HIV-like viruses, monkeypox, hemorrhagic fevers, and other deadly pathogens. 
• Some of this funding went to the same NIH-funded national primate research centers that RFK called out as wasteful and corrupt.
• Since early 2025, WCW has documented how the NIH continues to fund Fauci’s Monkey Island, dangerous biolabs, and other wasteful primate experiments, despite public commitments to cut animal tests. 
• The NIH continues to renew millions in funding for primate experimentation grants, even though the NIH Grants Policy Statement clearly states that the agency has the authority to stop funding them. 
• WCW estimates that the government still wastes $750 million a year on outdated primate tests like these. 

In August 2025, in direct response to a White Coat Waste (WCW) investigation of cruel, National Institutes of Health-funded (NIH) transgender monkey experiments started under Dr. Fauci, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stated, “We are working ferociously to end all non-human primate studies except in cases that are vital to saving human life, and for which no other option exists.” Kennedy pledged to work with WCW to get the job done. 

Then, last month, in a Fox News interview with Lara Trump, Secretary Kennedy reiterated his concern about the 100,000 primates locked in U.S. labs, saying, “We’re trying to put an end to that completely.” 

.@SecKennedy: “The badge of a really humane nation is the way that it takes care of its animals.” pic.twitter.com/1MYHdKQ0At

— HHS Rapid Response (@HHSResponse) December 21, 2025

This could be game changing, because RFK oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (which is shutting down its primate labs under President Trump), the Food and Drug Administration (which is already cutting primate tests), and the $48 billion NIH, which is the world’s single largest funder of animal testing.  

As we told CBS News following RFK’s announcement, “We are optimistic — but the devil is in the details.” Among the agencies under Kennedy’s purview, the NIH is the problem child. 

A new WCW analysis of government spending data shows that, under Director Jay Bhattacharya and ‘animal testing czar’ Nicole Kleinstreuer, the NIH has doled out over $14 million in new funding to primate labs since RFK’s December announcement. 

In all, just since the start of Fiscal Year 2026 (which began October 1, 2025), the NIH has handed out over $30 million for 40 different primate experiments—including renewals for Fauci-era grants—despite RFK’s repeated commitments to cut the funding. 

The renewed NIH grants are wasting tax dollars on injecting monkeys with mRNA vaccines, force-feeding them experimental drugs, drilling into their skulls, performing experimental organ transplants, and infecting them with HIV-like viruses, monkeypox, hemorrhagic fevers, and other deadly pathogens. 

Some of this funding went to the same NIH-funded national primate research centers that RFK called out as wasteful and corrupt in his recent interview. 

🚨RFK Jr. just EXPOSED the corruption that fuels taxpayer-funded primate labs we’ve been investigating.

This goes much deeper than you think … @SecKennedy: “The primate centers also have a profit motive.”

“There’s a dynamic here … that is self-sustaining and… pic.twitter.com/FPJESaNtF4

— White Coat Waste (@WhiteCoatWaste) December 22, 2025

WCW estimates that the government wastes $750 million a year on outdated primate tests, most of it coming from the NIH. 

Since early 2025, WCW has documented how NIH officials Bhattacharya and Kleinstreuer continue to send new taxpayer funding to Fauci’s Monkey Island, dangerous biolabs, and other wasteful primate experiments in labs worldwide, despite public commitments to cut animal tests. They’re also still funding dog and cat labs around the world that they promised to ‘phase out.’ 

The NIH continues to renew millions in funding for primate experimentation grants, even though the NIH Grants Policy Statement clearly states that the agency has the authority to stop funding them. The policy reads:  

“projected levels of future support are contingent on satisfactory progress, the availability of funds, and the continued best interests of the Federal government. They are not guarantees by NIH that the project will be funded or will be funded at those levels and create no legal obligation to provide funding beyond the ending date of the current budget period.”

It’s time for the NIH to put its (taxpayer) money where its mouth is. 

The solution is simple: