- A new White Coat Waste (WCW) report exposes more than $225 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding supporting dog and cat experiments since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
- The $225 million includes brand-new grants and contracts, additional discretionary funding for preexisting awards, and project extensions for taxpayer-funded dog and cat laboratories — new spending that began during the current Trump administration.
- Approximately 44 percent of the total identified since Secretary Kennedy took office — more than $98 million — consists of new NIH spending on dog testing at pharmaceutical companies.
- In July 2025, NIH Deputy Director Nicole Kleinstreuer falsely claimed the spending “predates” this administration and said the agency was “working tirelessly” to phase it out. Secretary Kennedy likewise promised a “dramatic reduction in animal testing” at NIH when he took office.
- Our investigation identified over $225 million in new taxpayer dollars for lethal heart-harvesting experiments on dogs, force-feeding experimental drugs to beagles, breeding puppies to become blind, and more — including new discretionary funding for a Fauci-era laboratory where beagles are fed to ticks.
- White Coat Waste also identified $11.7 million in new NIH spending on invasive cat experiments: brain and eye tests on kittens, severing cats’ spinal cords and then forcing them to walk on treadmills, forcing felines to cough and hyperventilate through carbon dioxide-pumped ventilators, and electro-shocking their voice boxes.
- NIH’s $225 million in new spending on dog and cat experiments exceeds the agency’s highly publicized $150 million “investment” in non-animal methods — also known as new approach methodologies (NAMs) — by more than $75 million.
- Alarmingly, following the release of beagles from Ridglan Farms, NIH’s cumulative new spending on dog and cat experiments under Secretary Kennedy spiked by approximately 50 percent — from $150 million in June 2026 to more than $225 million by September 2026.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised a “dramatic reduction in animal testing” at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH officials later claimed they were “working tirelessly” to phase out dog and cat experiments — and attempted to dismiss continued spending by arguing that it predated this Trump administration.
Before taking office, Secretary Kennedy was very familiar with our BeagleGate investigation that blew the lid off Dr. Fauci’s dog testing scandals.
In his 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy cited our exposé of a Fauci-funded laboratory in which healthy beagles were infested with flies.
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Now, White Coat Waste has followed the money under Kennedy’s own leadership — and the receipts tell a very different story.
MORE THAN $225 MILLION FOR DOG AND CAT EXPERIMENTS
MAHA Betrayed documents more than $225 million in NIH funding supporting dog and cat experiments between Secretary Kennedy’s confirmation on February 13, 2025, and September 8, 2026.
The total includes newly approved grants and contracts, new grant budget periods, renewals, contract actions, and funded extensions. Some projects began under previous administrations — but NIH’s decisions to provide new discretionary funding, renew awards, and extend projects occurred under this current leadership.
As of June 2026, White Coat Waste had identified more than $150 million in NIH funding for dog and cat experiments under Secretary Kennedy. By August, the total had climbed to more than $225 million — a roughly 50 percent increase in just over two months. This alarming spending spike also followed the widely covered release of beagles from Ridglan Farms.
NIH also heavily promoted its March 2026 announcement of more than $150 million for non-animal methods, or NAMs. Yet White Coat Waste’s current investigation identified approximately $75 million more than that investment in NIH funding supporting dog and cat experiments under Secretary Kennedy.
NIH’s claim that the spending “predates” the current administration does not hold up. Some of the experiments may have started earlier. The new funding did not.
THE RECEIPTS
The MAHA Betrayed report details how NIH’s funding decisions have kept existing laboratories operating and launched new dog and cat experiments across the country.
Among the examples uncovered by White Coat Waste:
- Funding Dog Testing at Pharmaceutical Companies. NIH has provided more than $98 million in new funding to pharmaceutical companies conducting dog experiments since Secretary Kennedy took office. This accounts for approximately 44 percent of the total identified in this investigation.
- Drilling Holes in Kitten Skulls: NIH issued a new grant to the University of Minnesota worth up to $2.4 million for experiments in which kittens have holes drilled into their skulls, viruses injected into their brains, and strokes intentionally induced before they are killed.
- Breeding Kittens To Go Blind: NIH issued a new $439,016 grant for a University of Wisconsin-Madison colony that breeds nearly 300 kittens with glaucoma. Some kittens in this colony are killed before they are one day old so their eyes can be removed and dissected.
- Killing Dogs in Glucose Experiments: NIH provided $3.9 million to Vanderbilt University through new and ongoing grants supporting deadly glucose experiments on dogs, including a new five-year award approved in February 2026.
- Infesting Beagles With Ticks: NIH provided approximately $1.9 million to a Fauci-era laboratory at the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) that infests beagles with biting ticks. New records obtained by White Coat Waste reveal that the lab switched from purchasing dogs from Ridglan Farms to disgraced breeder Marshall BioResources during Secretary Kennedy’s tenure.
- Forcing Cats To Cough and Shocking Their Voice Boxes: NIH provided an additional $686,054 to a grant that supported experiments at UMC in which cats were forced to hyperventilate on ventilators pumping carbon dioxide, made to cough with tubes inserted into their throats, and subjected to electric shocks delivered directly to their voice boxes.
- Damaging and Harvesting Dogs’ Hearts: NIH provided approximately $2 million for dog experiments at the University of Utah involving tied-off arteries, implanted pacemakers and electrodes, electric shocks, radiation damage to heart tissue, and the harvesting of dogs’ hearts.
These are only a handful of the funding decisions documented in MAHA Betrayed.
A REAL PHASE-OUT REQUIRES REAL SPENDING CUTS
White Coat Waste’s landmark BeagleGate campaign already proved that NIH can cancel planned dog experiments when it chooses to act. In 2022, following White Coat Waste’s investigation and bipartisan pressure, NIH canceled nearly $2 million in planned Fauci-funded beagle experiments.
Now, NIH must stop issuing new grants and contracts for dog and cat experiments and prohibit supplements, renewals, and extensions that continue existing projects. A credible phase-out requires a clear, enforceable deadline, measurable results, and real spending cuts — not NAMs, vague promises, or press releases.
Congress and taxpayers must hold NIH leadership accountable for ensuring that its funding decisions match its public commitments.
Until the spending stops, Secretary Kennedy’s promised phase-out remains only rhetoric. Click here to demand federal officials cut the funding now!
The solution is simple:
