Welp, guess who’s in trouble with lawmakers, again? Make that still.
Yup, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the emerging and infectious diseases “expert” has been implicated in a series of taxpayer-funded, animal-testing experiments. Beagle puppies, that is. This time, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is demanding answers.
According to the White Coat Waste Project (a watch group committed to stopping taxpayer-funded experiments on dogs, monkeys, cats, and other animals), as reported by Daily Caller, 44 beagles were used in the experiments conducted in a Tunisia, North Africa, laboratory. Some of the dogs reportedly had their vocal cords removed, allegedly so scientists could work without incessant barking.
White Coat Waste noted that the Food and Drug Administration does not require drugs to be tested on dogs, so the group is asking why the need for such testing. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is leading the congressional effort, joined by 14 Republicans and nine Democrats.
The lawmakers sent a letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) saying the cordectomies are “cruel” and a “reprehensible misuse of taxpayer funds.,”
We write with grave concerns about reports of costly, cruel, and unnecessary taxpayer-funded experiments on dogs commissioned by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The dogs were all between six and eight months old.
Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sandflies so that the insects could eat them alive,” White Coat Waste told Changing America. “They also locked beagles alone in cages in the desert overnight for nine consecutive nights to use them as bait to attract infectious sand flies.
The commissioned tests involved injecting and force-feeding the puppies an experimental drug for several weeks, before killing and dissecting them. Of particular concern is the fact that the invoice to NIAID included a line item for ‘cordectomy.’ As you are likely aware, a cordectomy, also known as ‘devocalization,’ involves slitting a dog’s vocal cords in order to prevent them from barking, howling, or crying.
The letter continued:
This cruel procedure – which is opposed with rare exceptions by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, and others – seems to have been performed so that experimenters would not have to listen to the pained cries of the beagle puppies. This is a reprehensible misuse of taxpayer funds.
It should be noted that Snopes, the intrepid “fact-checker” of intrepid fact-checkers, rated the claim “Mixture” — a rating Snopes loves to use when it can’t bring itself to rate a claim it hates as “true” — while appearing to confirm the puppy experiments, anyway.
It is true that obligated funds were issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the amount of $424,555 for research conducted at the University of Georgia to test the efficacy of a potential vaccine for lymphatic filariasis on beagle subjects.
However, it is unclear whether Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at NIH, personally approved the project. Research conducted on behalf of NIAID is funded in large part through annual funds allocated by Congress and the president.
A University of Georgia spokesperson indicated that testing on dogs was, in fact, necessary, and that all humane standards set by applicable agencies were adhered to.
White Coat Waste vice president of advocacy and public policy, Justin Goodman applauded the efforts of Rep. Mace and her House colleagues, as transcribed by Daily Caller.
“De-barking beagles and poisoning puppies in experiments with our tax dollars is a national disgrace that’s uniting Republicans and Democrats, and we applaud Rep. Nancy Mace and her colleagues on both sides of the aisle for holding the NIH accountable this government waste and animal abuse.”
Meanwhile, in other Dr. Mengele Fauci news, as we reported on Thursday, vindicated Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) took a well-deserved victory lap after National Institutes of Health (NIH) documents conclusively proved that the “good” doctor did in fact lie to Paul during Senate testimony about funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Democrats were hardest hit by the revelation.