2022 Festivus Report Shows NIH Waste: $3M to Watch Hamsters Fight on Steroids, $2.1M to Tell Ethiopians to Wear Shoes

This year’s annual Festivus report from Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) highlights billions in government waste, including wasteful expenditures at the hands of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which spent millions of taxpayer dollars on watching hamsters fight on steroids and millions more on campaigns encouraging individuals in other countries to wear shoes.

Paul’s 2022 Festivus report features $482,276,543,907 in government waste.

“As always, the path to fiscal responsibility is often a lonely journey, but as I’ve done in years past, I will continue my fight against government waste this holiday season. So before we get to the Feats of Strength, it’s time for my Airing of (spending) Grievances!” Paul wrote in the report.

Six of the highlights in the report feature millions in waste at the hands of the NIH. One of the most well-known grievances involves the $2.3 million it spent on a project involving injecting six-month-old beagle puppies with cocaine. The taxpayer watchdog group White Coat Waste Project helped blow the lid off this project, finding that the puppies were forced to wear a jacket which injected the animal with drugs. This went on repeatedly “for months.” – READ MORE