Millions of US tax dollars are being sent to shady labs in China to fund cruel and dangerous animal testing.
Records show that from 2013 to this year, more than $15 million in government grants has funded animal testing in foreign laboratories, despite concerns that dubious Chinese research may have sparked the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some of the US-sponsored research involved collecting dangerous bird flu viruses from China’s wet markets and infecting chickens, ducks and guinea pigs in order to “supercharge” the viruses and make them more transmissible.
While research isn’t technically illegal in China, it’s not subject to the same strict ethics and safety protocols as in the US.
An earlier investigation by the regulator found that grants sent to Chinese labs often face little or no oversight.
Between 2015 and 2023, at least seven U.S. institutions provided NIH grants totaling $3,306,061 to laboratories in China that performed animal testing
The above labs in China that conduct animal testing are all eligible for funding from the National Institutes of Health
In fiscal years 2021-2023, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), America’s premier agency for medical and public health research and response, awarded 15 grants totaling $3.6 million to institutions in China that conduct animal research.
During the same period, the NIH awarded at least 92 grants worth US$12.5 million to institutions in China.
Subcontracting allows another organization to carry out some activities for the NIH grant under the supervision of the NIH.
For example, in some cases, the NIH awarded a grant to an educational institution, which then sent money to Chinese companies that conducted unsupervised animal testing.
Federal spending data from 2020 shows that the NIH spent an estimated $140 million on animal testing in 29 countries.
Monitoring group White Coat Waste Project is fighting to stop the government from sending American taxpayer money abroad to fund virus and drug testing on animals.
The organization was the first to find out that the NIH sent millions of dollars to China and Russia for uncontrolled and dangerous animal testing.
Georgia Tech sent $770,466 of a $2.7 million NIH grant to the Kremlin-affiliated Pavlov Institute of Physiology, which conducted experiments on cats.
According to the WCW project, the experiments involved implanting electrodes in the cats’ spines and muscles, and removing parts of their brains. The cats were also caged in metal frames and forced to walk on treadmills. They were then killed and dissected.
Additionally, between 2018 and 2020, the University of Illinois received approximately $123,550 from a $1.6 million NIH grant and an undisclosed amount from a USDA grant to the Kremlin-affiliated Institute of Cytology and Genetics donated to study the social behavior of silver foxes on a fur farm. The foxes were kept in small and unkempt cages and then killed and dissected.
In the US, these experiments would likely not be legal under government guidelines for the use of animals in experiments. These include providing adequate veterinary care, using appropriate anesthetics to minimize harm, and using humane methods of euthanasia.
Following the findings of the WCW project, the group managed to get the Biden administration to cut funding for all animal laboratories in Russia earlier this year. However, animal testing continued in China with American money.
Shi Zhengli – also known as “bat lady” or “bat woman” because of her work on bat coronaviruses – is pictured in a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. She hunted down dozens of deadly Covid-like viruses in bat caves and studied them at the WIV
Live and dead rabbits for sale at a market in China in 2020. In experiments between 2015 and 2018, researchers collected bird flu viruses from China’s wet markets and injected them into guinea pigs, mice, chickens and ducks
A woman removes flies from meat at a meat stall at a market in Guangzhou in June 2020. Between 2015 and 2018, researchers conducted experiments to amplify influenza viruses collected from China’s wet markets
Now the group has teamed up with Michigan Republican Lisa McClain to introduce the bipartisan Accountability in Foreign Animals Research (AFAR) Act.
The bill was first introduced by McClain in 2021 and has since garnered the support of other members of the House of Representatives as well as the attention of members of the Senate. Now it’s being reintroduced in Congress. The legislation would prevent the NIH from conducting or supporting any vertebrate research abroad.
Vertebrates are animals with spinal cords and bony or cartilaginous backbones, including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish.
“Our tax dollars should never be sent to government labs in rival countries like Russia and China that threaten our national security.”
“My AFAR law would prohibit sending taxpayer money to animal testing labs in countries deemed foreign adversaries,” McClain said in a statement.
Recent data compiled by the WCW Project found that between 2015 and 2023, at least seven U.S. institutions passed a portion of their NIH grants to labs in China that conduct animal testing, totaling more than $3.3 million.
Between 2015 and 2018, Emory University provided the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, which houses one of China’s dangerous high-containment bioagent labs, with $515,418 from a $38.6 million health and human services contract for avian flu virus experiments .
Researchers collected bird flu viruses from China’s wet markets and injected them into guinea pigs, mice, chickens and ducks. Taxpayers’ money has also been used to boost flu viruses, making them more transmissible. The animals were later killed and dissected.
The study continued through July 2022, years after the start of the Covid pandemic, despite concerns about the origins of the pandemic.
In addition to providing funding for Kremlin-backed labs, the University of Illinois also provided $149,832 of the NIH’s $1.7 million grant to the Institut Pasteur in Shanghai in 2017 to treat mice with tuberculosis infect. Mice were sacrificed after 50 days and their lungs were dissected.
The research ended in 2019.
From 2017 to 2018, the University of South Florida sent more than $812,900 of a $28.9 million NIH grant to several Chinese institutions to develop mutant strains of malaria and inject them into mice. The mice were then fed to mosquitoes.
The White Coat Waste Project found caged white rabbits in the Wuhan Animal Laboratory
The White Coat Waste Project has discovered silver foxes being kept in cages on a Russian experimental farm
The research is scheduled to last until March 2024.
In 2019, Eastern Virginia Medical School transferred $42,452 of a $35.5 million U.S. Agency for International Development grant to the Zhangliang Digging Machinery Business Department in Qichun County. The funds were used to test an experimental hepatitis and HIV drug in primates.
According to a description by USA Spending, which compiles information on grants, the study states that primates receive a “treatment” and then have their plasma analyzed.
The research ran until November 2021.
Also in 2019, the University of California-Irvine provided $216,000 of a $4.3 million NIH grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct experiments related to neural tracking. Experiments involved drilling holes in the skulls of mice, rats and shrews and injecting herpes viruses into their brains. The study said there was “quick death in the injected animals” and viral infections.
It was only completed in January.
In one of the largest shipments to Chinese animal testing labs, the Allen Institute of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen sent nearly $1 million of its $64.7 million NIH grant to China’s Huazhong University of Science in 2021 and technology. The study, which just ended in January, consisted of creating an atlas of mouse brain cells. Researchers killed and dissected the brains of eight-week-old mice for analysis and mapping.
As recently as February 2023, the University of Southern California forwarded more than $576,400 of its $1.9 million NIH grant to Peking University for experiments that involved drilling holes in the skulls of mice and injecting viruses into them were injected into her brain. Scientists inserted electrodes into the animals’ brains and conducted imaging experiments.
The research is scheduled to run until 2025.
While the monitoring group disclosed the millions of dollars being sent abroad, Americans may never know the exact amount or the specific experiments being conducted because of an NIH loophole that exempts foreign grantees from complying with certain animal care guidelines. The WCW project is currently suing the institution over this loophole.
In a statement, Justin Goodman, senior vice president of the WCW project, said, “Sending taxpayer money to animal testing labs in China, Russia and other hostile countries is a recipe for disaster.”
“Our global waste campaign has drained funding from the Wuhan lab, Putin’s kitten tests, and all Russian animal labs, but we’ve found that dozens of animal labs in China are still entitled to more taxpayers’ money.” Over 70 percent of taxpayers — Republicans and Democrats alike — are opposed to this reckless spending… No more money. Stop the madness.