U.S. tax dollars have been funding ongoing experiments at the University of Iowa, where “donated” pet dogs are drugged, locked in mesh cages, and eaten alive by sand flies trapped in capsules strapped to their ears. When the sand flies “feed” on the dogs, they infect them with leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that causes fever, severe weight loss, diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding from the nose, among other symptoms in pups. Even though there are treatments for leishmaniasis, the dogs involved in the experiments have been killed and dissected after the abuse.
White Coat Waste Project (WCW), the nonpartisan watchdog group that broke the story, reported that the experiments have received close to $10 million in taxpayer funds from the two grants, one from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the other from the National Institute of Health’s Fogarty International Center. The NIAID grant was greenlit under the purview of former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. Both grants continue to fund the abuse even after Fauci’s retirement and are set to expire in June 2023.
The details White Coat Waste obtained about the dog-abusing experiments came from a published NIH document. However, according to WCW, further information is still being hidden from the public after the university admitted to destroying several records of the experiments.
This isn’t the first time the NIH and NIAID used American tax dollars to needlessly torment dogs. Last April, WCW exposed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for conducting the exact same flying-eating experiments on beagles in Tunisia.
Another NIH dog experiment is the “septic shock” tests, where the canine’s throats are cut open, and infectious bacteria is implanted directly into the dogs’ lungs, causing them to develop pneumonia. “Experimenters then bleed out the dogs, give them transfusions, and wait to see how long the dogs who survive surgery live,” reports the Daily Caller.
In May, White Coat Waste Project revealed that the NIAID was planning to pour $1.8 million in taxpayer funds into a different series of painful beagle experiments to test a drug for “allergic rhinitis,” otherwise known as a runny nose. These experiments included feeding the dogs experimental drugs, injecting them with cocaine, and cutting out their vocal cords so they could not bark while enduring the torture.
However, after significant pushback from the public and lawmakers, the NIAID backed off, and Fauci was forced to make a statement promising the runny nose drug study would replace the canines with rodents. While dogs may have been spared from the runny nose experiment, the abuse clearly continues at the hands of unelected NIH and NIAID bureaucrats and the expense of the American taxpayer.
To stop the abuse, Congress has re-introduced a bipartisan “Protecting Dogs Subjected to Experiments Act” to defund all of the NIH’s cruel and wasteful dog experiments. “…NIH-funded white coats in the U.S. and abroad are wasting millions of taxpayer dollars to inject puppies with cocaine, de-bark and poison dogs, infest beagles with flies and ticks, and force dogs to suffer bleeding disorders and septic shock,” said White Coat Waste Project Campaign Manager, Desiree Bender, in a statement. “The solution is clear: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”
Reporting from The Federalist.
