The White Coat Waste Project publishes
a report titled “Spending to Death: Wasteful Government Spending,
Transparency Failures, and the Secretive World of Federal Dog
Experiments.” The WCW’s report describes how, in 2015 alone, over 1,183
beagles, hounds, and mixed-breed dogs, including puppies, were
“subjected to painful, bizarre and wasteful experiments inside federal
agency laboratories” operated by the National Institutes of Health, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug
Administration, and the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
According
to the Project, the agencies in question purchased the dogs “just to
cut them apart, infect them, make them sick, and kill them in
taxpayer-funded experiments.” Many of the dogs were used in experiments
in which they were intentionally given heart attacks, implanted with
experimental technology, or had their skulls drilled.

2016 11 05 Wcw Spending To Death Report
3.61MB ∙ PDF file
DownloadA
bipartisan group of 24 lawmakers sign a letter to National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci that says they
have “grave concerns” that NIAD spent $1.68 million from October 2018 to
February 2019 on experiments involving beagle puppies. The money was
spent over a four-month period, from October 2018 to February 2019.
Of
particular concern is the fact that the invoice to NIAID included a
line item for “cordectomy.” As you are likely aware, a cordectomy, also
known as “devocalization,” involves slitting a dog’s vocal cords in
order to prevent them from barking, howling, or crying. This cruel
procedure — which is opposed with rare exceptions by the American
Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital
Association, and others — seems to have been performed so that
experimenters would not have to listen to the pained cries of the beagle
puppies. This is a reprehensible misuse of taxpayer funds.
The
letter asks Fauci to provide a detailed rationale for the tests, which
were carried out on 44 beagle puppies who were between six and eight
months old.
Six Republican U.S. senators sign a similar letter to Fauci on Oct. 29.

10 21 2021 Bipartisan Letter To Congress
737KB ∙ PDF file
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10 29 2021 Senators Paul Marshall Cotton Rubio Braun Collins Letter To NIAID About Beagle Experiments
452KB ∙ PDF file
DownloadFact-checkers get to work. First, Politifact reports
that a photo WCW posted of beagles’ heads in mesh cages didn’t come
from a NIAID-funded study and that the journal that published the study
erroneously gave NIAID credit. The journal said it made a mistake and
issues a correction.
WCW cited a database of NIH-funded research “which appeared to link the agency to the study,” Politifact reports. It even marks up the photo:
A story in The Washington Post calls it a “viral and false claim” that NIAID funded the study with beagles’ heads in mesh cages. The Post reports:
The false claim about the
funding for the beagle study, research that was conducted in Tunisia,
originated with an error by scientists. Initially, the researchers
mistakenly listed NIAID as a funder when they published a paper in a
scientific journal in late July.
The story says the study “does not appear in a database of NIH-funded projects.”
The NIAID did, however, fund another study in Tunisia by the same researchers, the Post reports. It evaluated a vaccine for a parasitic disease that infects humans and dogs.
Twelve
dogs were given the vaccine and then put in a fenced-in open space
outside during high sand fly season, NIAID said, to see if the dogs
still became infected.
WCW’s Justin Goodman doesn’t believe NIAID’s denial and tells the Post it’s “too convenient.”
The Washington Post reports
that in July 2021, the USDA cited a beagle-breeding facility called
Envigo in Cumberland, Va. The NIH is among its clients. The Post story cites a PETA report
that found Envigo and its predecessor had contracts with NIH that were
“potentially worth” $1.2 million. Among the problems inspectors found,
according to the Post:
More than 500 dogs in a
building without air conditioning. The dogs were in temperatures above
85 degrees for at least five hours.
Roughly a dozen nursing dogs went without water for 42 hours.
Fight wounds on nearly 50 dogs.
A spokesman for Envigo told the Post it
would correct the problems. The company also says its dogs play an
“integral role in the development of advanced pacemakers,” vaccine
development, and Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis research.
The Justice Department files a complaint
against Envigo for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. The complaint
(see below) says the facility had housed up to 5,000 beagles in the last
year in which it received more than “60 citations for non-compliance
with the AWA, which have affected thousands of beagles. More than half
of those citations were deemed “critical” or “direct,” the most serious
types of AWA citation.
Nearly 150 dogs are immediately removed from the facility. In July, Envigo agrees to surrender more than 4,000 beagles and close the facility. The dogs are put up for adoption.
Through the Freedom of Information Act, WCW obtained records of NIH doing business with that facility and others run by Envigo.

55874 FOIA Envigo
19.6MB ∙ PDF file
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Office
Of Public Affairs Justice Department Secures The Surrender Of Over
4,000 Beagles From Virginia Breeder Of Dogs For Research United States
Department Of Justice
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DownloadIn the video above, Greene says:
As
director of the NIH, you did sign off on these so-called scientific
experiments, and as a dog lover, I want to tell you this is disgusting
and evil, what you signed off on. And these experiments that happened to
beagles are paid for by the American taxpayer. And I want you to know
Americans don’t pay their taxes for animals to be tortured like this.
So, the type of science that you are representing, Mr. Fauci, is
abhorrent, and it needs to stop.
Greene shows the photograph again during another exchange about 30 seconds later, to which Fauci replies:
What do dogs have to do with anything we’re talking about today?
On the same day, Envigo pleads guilty and agrees to pay $35 million in fines.

Justice Department Guilty Plea
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DownloadFresh off of Greene confronting Fauci, the Washington Post takes a deeper dive into that picture it had earlier called a “viral and false claim.”
The Post no longer stridently labels it a “false claim.”
It
reports that the NIH couldn’t provide proof that it didn’t fund the
study involving dogs’ heads in mesh cases — it only had the word of a
researcher at Ohio State who asked for a correction in 2021 after being
contacted by the NIH. The editor of the journal agreed but expressed
hesitation because she was also an employee of NIAID. She emailed NIAID
officials that she was worried about a conflict of interest. The NIH
declined the Post’s request to answer questions about the potential
conflict.
The story notes that its November 2021 article
(mentioned above) said the trapped-beagles claim “does not appear in a
database of NIH-funded projects.” That was true — but:
The
emails show that, while it was removed before the publication of The
Post article, the study had been listed in the database for months and
was still listed as of the previous month, when Fauci first asked about
the controversy.
It turns out there’s more to
the story about the beagle study that NIAID acknowledged funding — the
one in which the dogs were reportedly “put in a fenced-in open space
outside.”
Finally, other documents obtained by White Coat Waste
suggest the Tunisia study funded by NIH was not as benign as the agency
suggested. Instead of an “enclosed open space,” the study’s grant
application shows a photograph that indicated that the dogs were kept in
a cage as they were “exposed to sand fly bites each night through the
sand fly season to ensure transmission.” The grant application also
described how, separately, dogs would be sedated and placed in cages for
two hours while they were exposed to 15 to 30 female sand flies.
The story concludes:
The
emails show that NIH was not fully transparent as it tried to handle a
public-relations nightmare. Perhaps there was little reason to doubt
Satoskar, but officials embraced his explanation without confirming as
they rushed out a statement. They made no acknowledgment that they had
removed the study from the NIH grant database or that the editor of the
journal that quickly issued the correction had a potential conflict of
interest. Moreover, the NIH study in Tunisia that the agency said it
funded was cast in a positive light that is undermined by the grant
application that has since been made public.
Meanwhile,
WCW had already posted a contract and research description that it says
is for the study that had the viral picture of the two dogs.

Niaid Foiadoc Wm
15.1MB ∙ PDF file
DownloadWCW also obtained emails from one of the Washington Post
reporters, Beth Reinhard, who wrote the 2021 story that said it was a
“viral and false claim” that NIAID funded the study. In seeking comment,
Reinhard wrote she was working on a story about a “massive
disinformation campaign” against Fauci.
During an appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend,
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya says “we got rid of all the beagle
experiments on the NIH campus.” He mentions it as an example of changing
the culture at NIH, not as a big policy announcement.
White Coast Waste founder Anthony Bellotti takes credit for the decision, saying:
As the watchdog that first uncovered and battled Dr. Fauci’s beagle tests
(the biggest animal testing scandal in history), we’re proud that White
Coat Waste has closed the NIH’s last in-house beagle laboratory—and the
US government’s biggest dog lab.
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