• White Coat Waste’s (WCW) latest investigation has exposed a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded lab at the University of Chicago that is deliberately inducing the “most severe stroke” in dogs before killing them.
• Documents obtained by WCW reveal that helpless dogs “at risk of … significant suffering” have their arteries intentionally blocked to cut off blood and oxygen flow to their brains and trigger catastrophic strokes.
• The NIH has already wasted $4.9 million on this lab. The project’s current grant received $596,000 in June 2025 and is slated to receive three more years of funding unless the government acts.
• These deadly dog experiments are also being funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
• Although the NIH and ‘animal testing czar’ Nicole Kleinstreuer committed to phasing out dog and cat tests, the agency continues to dole out millions of dollars in funding for cruel pet experiments like this.
• WCW is leading the charge to get the NIH and the NSF out of the animal experimentation business for good.

White Coat Waste’s (WCW) latest investigation has revealed another instance of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and ‘animal testing czar’ Nicole Kleinstreuer writing checks for pet abuse, despite claiming the problem “predates” them.

Documents obtained by WCW through the Freedom of Information Act detail how the NIH is bankrolling experimenters at the University of Chicago who are intentionally inducing the “most severe stroke” in 64 dogs before killing them.

At this University of Chicago lab, dogs endure three grueling days of experimentation before they are slaughtered.

On the first day, the canines are poked and prodded by white coats as they’re subjected to imaging and blood draws.

On day two, NIH-funded experimenters intentionally induce strokes by inserting coils into the dogs’ arteries, cutting off blood and oxygen flow to their brains. Once they regain consciousness, the dogs are given no time to recover. Instead, they’re forced through a stroke scale scoring system, an assessment that measures their ability to walk, respond visually, retain basic sensory and motor function, and more.

On the third day, after the final images and samples are collected, every single dog is killed.

In the lab’s own documents, experimenters attempt to justify slaughtering these helpless animals by admitting that they would face “significant suffering” if allowed to live, since they would be denied the same “care and round-the-clock attention” given to human stroke patients.

The kicker is that these dog experiments are allegedly meant to study a stroke treatment that has already been proven safe and effective in human clinical trials — making this taxpayer-funded suffering especially cruel and wasteful.

So far, the NIH has wasted $4.9 million on this barbaric stroke lab. The project received another $596,000 in new funding in June 2025.

The spending isn’t over, either. Three additional years of funding remain on this active grant, meaning even more dogs will meet the same fate unless the NIH exercises its authority to stop funding existing grants.

Additionally, portions of two National Science Foundation (NSF) grants — totaling $40.5 million — have supported this dog lab. The current $24.7 million NSF grant runs until August 2026. WCW is working with Congress to cut this active funding, too.

Despite public pledges to “phase out”  dog and cat testing and claims that the funding “predates” her, Deputy Director Nicole Kleinstreuer continues to hand out new NIH funding for cruel, wasteful experiments on pets.

Even worse, you’re paying for it — but taxpayer-funded torture doesn’t have to be the status quo.

While the NIH is refusing to fully phase out its dog and cat experiments, other Trump administration agencies are proving that animal testing can be eliminated right now.

WCW’s investigations have already forced:

• • The Department of Veterans Affairs to end dog, cat, and primate testing.
  • The U.S. Navy to ban dog and cat experiments entirely.
    
  • The Environmental Protection Agency to shut down animal labs and retire survivors.

We’re also working with Congress to pass the bipartisan Preventing Animal Abuse and Waste (PAAW) Act, which would permanently slash all NIH funding for dog and cat testing.

Because no taxpayer should have their hard-earned money wasted on animal abuse.