The National Institute of Health (NIH) has closed its last beagle laboratory that allegedly performed inhumane and sometimes lethal experiments on dogs for years.
In recent years, the agency has been chastised by animal welfare groups such as White Coat Waste (WCW), which claims the lab has pumped pneumonia-causing bacteria into more than 2,000 beagles’ lungs and forced them into septic shock.
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During an on-air Fox News appearance Sunday, NIH director Jay Bhattacharya announced that the agency ‘got rid of all the beagle experiments on the NIH campus.’
‘I got flowers from PETA — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Normally, I think NIH directors tend to get physical threats, but they sent me flowers,’ he said.
The lab closure is part of a new NIH initiative to reduce reliance on animal experiments in biomedical research, and instead prioritize ‘human-based research technologies.’
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The NIH’s beagle experiments have been mired in controversy since 2021, when scathing WCW reports launched accusations of animal cruelty and wasteful spending at NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The resulting political firestorm (dubbed #BeagleGate) centered around claims that Dr Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID and chief medical advisor to the president at the time, allocated more than $1 million toward cruel beagle experiments.
This allegedly included $424,000 for experiments in which the dogs were ‘bitten to death’ by flies; part of a $375,800 grant sent to a lab in Tunisia for more fly-bite experiments; and over $1 million to inject beagles with an experimental drug, cut out their vocal cords and kill them.
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In response to the letter, the NIAID said its standards on animal testing are high, noting that they are peer reviewed and ensured by veterinarians.
‘All animals used in NIH-funded research are protected by laws, regulations, and policies to ensure the smallest possible number of subjects and the greatest commitment to their welfare,’ The NIAID told Changing America.
‘Institutions receiving funds, including those in other countries, must conduct research that involves animals in accordance with the Public Health Service Policy on the Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.’
What’s more, the institute said the NIH did not actually fund the fly-bite study in Tunisia, claiming that the study (and shocking images it contained) falsely attributed financial support to NIAID.
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But the NIAID did admit to funding a separate study in Tunisia that used beagles to test a new vaccine for leishmaniasis.
‘In the NIAID-supported study, twelve dogs were immunized with the experimental vaccine at the Pasteur Institute of Tunis, and then let out in an enclosed open space during the day, during high sandfly season in an area of Tunisia considered to be hyper-endemic for canine leishmaniasis,’ the institute stated.
‘The goal of the research was to determine if the experimental vaccine prevented the dogs from becoming infected in a natural setting.’
As for Fauci’s role in sanctioning NIAID’s beagle studies, the institute told FactCheck.org that the decision of whether to fund a research grant application is made through a multi-step peer-review process.
‘Final funding decisions are made on a group of a few thousand grant applications at a time based on the advice of the Advisory Council and NIAID staff and concurrence by Dr. Fauci.
‘Except in very limited circumstances, Dr. Fauci does not approve funding for grant applications on an individual basis. These limited circumstances did not apply to the research recently highlighted by the White Coat Waste Project.’
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‘This was the last in-house dog lab at the NIH, and it’s actually — to our knowledge — the last in house dog lab across the entire federal government,’ he said.
‘However, there are hundreds of other dog labs being funded by the US government, including the NIH outside of Washington, DC.
‘So colleges and universities, private laboratories, even laboratories in China, are currently receiving taxpayer dollars from the NIH and DoD for dog testing.
‘We want to take this great homegrown victory inside the NIH and now export it across the entire country.’
* Original Article:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14680597/amp/anthony-fauci-labs-accused-killing-beagles-shut-down.html?ito=smartnews