A bipartisan group of lawmakers are demanding answers from聽top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci over reports that an institute under his leadership funded “cruel” drug toxicity experiments in dogs.
Fauci is the director of聽the聽National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division under the聽National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Documents showed that NIAID spent $1.68 million in taxpayer funds for animal experimentation. tests were conducted聽between October 2018 and February 2019聽at聽SRI International, a聽research group headquartered in Menlo Park, California.
experiment involved injecting and force-feeding 44 beagle puppies between six and eight months old with an experimental drug for several weeks, before killing and dissecting them. re was also experimentation on mice.
documents (pdf) were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the White Coat Waste Project, a聽nonprofit聽government watchdog. watchdog said that this marks the fourth experiment on beagles funded by NIAID that it has been able to uncover.
House members, led by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), called the experiment “unnecessary” in their letter to Fauci聽(pdf) on Oct. 21.
“While documents state that the ostensible purpose of this study was to ‘provide data of suitable quality and integrity to support the application to the聽U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory agencies,’ the FDA itself has recently stated that it ‘does not mandate that human drugs be studied in dogs,’” they told Fauci.
Procedure Stops Dogs From Barking
lawmakers also expressed horror at a procedure used in the experiment. y noted that an invoice to NIAID involved an item called a “cordectomy,” also known as devocalization or de-barking. procedure involves slitting a dog’s vocal cords to remove its ability to bark, howl, or cry.
“This cruel procedure … seems to have been performed so that experimenters would not have to listen to the painted cries of the beagle puppies,” the 24 legislators said. “This is a reprehensible misuse of taxpayer funds.”
y asked Fauci, “Why has NIAID contracted for cordectomies when they appear to be scientifically and medically unnecessary? What is the average cost for each cordectomy performed?”
Lawmakers are also asking how many drug experiments involving dogs have been funded by NIAID since January 2018 and how much taxpayer funds have been used.
y are also asking why the NIAID continued to fund testing involving dogs when the FDA has said such tests are not required. y added, “What has NIAID done to explore the use of non-canine and non-animal alternatives to meet FDA requirements?”
Lawmakers are also seeking information surrounding whether NIAID has ever made the dogs available for adoption after the experiments.
y demand the answers by Nov. 9.
Pezou has reached out to NIAID for comment.
A previous investigation by聽the White Coat Waste Project found that NIAID directed $424,455聽to an experiment聽at the University of Georgia in September 2020 that involved infecting beagles with parasites to test an experimental drug on them, before killing them.
Pezou : 24 Lawmakers Ask Fauci About ‘Cruel’ Dog Experiments Under NIAID