Congress: US Must Stop Funding ‘Horrific’ Animal Experiments in Russia

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to bar the National Institutes of Health from providing taxpayer funds to Russia so that it can perform “abusive experiments” on animals.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R., Mich.) and a bipartisan group of 28 lawmakers are pressing their colleagues on the House committee responsible for allocating these funds to stop NIH from funding animal research at Russian labs. Experiments at these labs, they say, are not only barbaric but are enriching Moscow as it wages an unprovoked war in Ukraine.

“Russian laboratories should not be receiving U.S. taxpayer dollars—nor be eligible to receive taxpayer dollars—while the country is despicably trying to overthrow, by military force, the government of our sovereign democratic ally, Ukraine,” the lawmakers wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.

The United States, through the NIH, provides taxpayer dollars to at least four Russian labs engaged in animal research, including what lawmakers describe as “horrific and barbaric experiments” on cats and other animals. In November 2021, NIH awarded $549,331 to a Russian lab known to abuse cats, performing grisly experiments such as surgically removing parts of cats’ brains and then forcing them to walk on treadmills.

The letter comes as NIH funding has received increased scrutiny over its ties to China and funding for experiments in that country prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. At least 31 labs in Russia and China receive U.S. taxpayer money for animal experiments. These funding channels are now under congressional scrutiny as lawmakers try to block the federal government from partnering with adversarial regimes. – READ MORE