NIH halting taxpayer-funded dog and cat testing after outcry from Republican lawmakers

By Ross O’Keefe | Washington Examiner

Hours after Republican lawmakers sent a letter to National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya asking him to end dog and cat testing, two top officials at the agency said they are “phasing out” testing on the animals.

Bhattacharya and NIH Deputy Director Nicole Kleinstreuer spoke with each other on an NIH video, in which the former asked the latter what they should do about dog and cat testing.

“I don’t think we should do research on dogs or cats,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

“To phase them out, we are working tirelessly behind the scenes,” she added. “We are doing a very critical assessment of the entire extramural grant portfolio to understand where different types of animals are being used and for what purposes, and to create an action plan to phase those out as quickly as possible under the law.”

House Republicans, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Pete Stauber (R-MN), Daniel Webster (R-FL), Scott Perry (R-PA), Michael Cloud (R-TX), Pat Fallon (R-TX), Harriet Hageman (R-WY), Eli Crane (R-AZ), and Chris Smith (R-NJ), sent a letter to Bhattacharya on Tuesday demanding that they end dog and cat testing.

“We are sending this request with considerable urgency because numerous media reports and ongoing investigations by the nonprofit group White Coat Waste have documented how the NIH continues to renew and fund dozens of Dr. Fauci’s disturbing experiments on dogs and cats in labs around the world, in which animals are infested with insects, infected with viruses, force-fed experimental drugs, and killed,” they said.

White Coat Waste, a government watchdog, celebrated the phasing out of dog and cat testing.

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