- A White Coat Waste (WCW) investigation has killed a plan by an infamous Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) animal experimenter to skirt a federal funding ban and restart deadly dog testing with tax money from RFK’s National Institutes of Health (NIH).
- Internal emails and other documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that days after a WCW request for records about the scheme to circumvent a legal ban on VA funding for dog testing by using NIH money instead, infamous animal experimenter Alex Tan quickly canceled plans to abuse and kill 52 dogs in treadmill tests.
- WCW uncovered that in August 2025, RFK’s NIH doled out a new five-year grant worth up to $2.2 million to resurrect experiments on dogs by the Richmond VA despite a federal funding ban on VA dog testing, and the fact that Alex Tan was previously banned from VA animal labs for botched surgeries that killed dogs.
- WCW shut down all of the Richmond VA’s dog labs back in 2022 and successfully lobbied to enact historic federal legislation that ordered the VA to eliminate all dog, cat, and primate testing by March 2026.
- WCW’s MAHA Betrayed investigation has documented how the NIH has doled out over $225 million in new funding supporting dog and cat experiments since RFK became Secretary of Health and Human Services.
White Coat Waste Project, an organization that seeks to end live animal experiments, announced that Department of Veterans Affairs researcher Dr. Alex Tan will not use live dogs in a taxpayer-funded experiment after pressure from animal rights groups.
—Stars and Stripes, October 30, 2026
In 2022, White Coat Waste’s (WCW) successful campaign shut down the last dog experiments at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and then secured historic federal legislation ordering the VA to eliminate all dog, cat, and primate testing by March 2026.
Now, we’ve exposed and stopped a plan by the VA’s most infamous dog experimenter to circumvent the ban and resurrect his deadly dog tests, this time with over $2 million in tax funding from Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Here’s how it happened:
As part of our MAHA Betrayed campaign, WCW has been meticulously tracking new NIH spending on dog and cat experiments under RFK during this Trump administration.
In September of last year, WCW flagged a brand new five-year NIH grant worth up to $2.2 million to Richmond VA animal experimenter Alex Tan for new deadly heart experiments on dogs, despite the federal ban on VA funding for dog testing and the law ordering the VA to eliminate all dog testing by March 2026.
RFK’s NIH also doled out this money to Tan despite WCW exposing years ago that Tan was banned from the animal labs at the Richmond VA for botching surgeries that killed dogs.
The new September 2025 dog testing grant was also issued months after NIH Deputy Director Nicole Kleinstreuer falsely claimed that all funding for dog testing “predates” her and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya.
WCW submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on September 17, 2025, and obtained the NIH-approved grant application proposing the purchase of 52 “mongrel” dogs at $2,000 each. The dogs would have their chests cut open and pacemakers implanted. Some would have cardiac nerves removed, undergo induced abnormal heartbeats to damage their hearts, and be forced to run on treadmills before they were killed.
New records we’ve obtained from the NIH now confirm that just six days after WCW requested the grant records, Tan emailed the NIH about “something important and urgent” that he wanted to discuss.
By September 30, less than two weeks after we uncovered the scheme, Tan requested a change from experiments on live dogs to work on banked dog specimens and live pigs. He described the request as time sensitive.
NIH approved the change earlier this year and credited the VA dog testing ban that WCW secured for the switch.
However, the VA dog testing funding ban and 2026 elimination deadline were already in place when the NIH grant was approved in September 2025, and the paper trail shows that the decision to cancel the dog tests was put into motion following WCW’s investigation and FOIA request.
WCW’s campaign blew the lid off and closed the door on NIH and Alex Tan’s scheme to resurrect dog experiments by the VA.
WCW’s successful campaign to shut down the VA’s dog, cat and primate labs set historic precedents.
Through federal lawsuits, legislation, grassroots advocacy, and with support from brave whistleblowers, bipartisan members of Congress, veterans, a VA Secretary, and even first daughter-in-law Lara Trump, WCW exposed, defunded, and stopped every VA dog experiment nationwide. The win set historic precedents across federal and state governments. It marked the first time Congress voted to defund dog tests across an entire federal agency and prompted Virginia to pass the first state law in the country banning taxpayer funding for maximum pain experiments on dogs and cats.
WCW secured another historic victory when Congress enacted WCW-backed legislation directing the VA to eliminate all experiments on dogs, cats, and primates by 2026.
This represents the first time that Congress has directed a federal agency to completely end experimentation on certain animal species, according to the White Coat Waste Project, a nonprofit watchdog that works to raise awareness about government research using animals.
— Stars and Stripes, April 17, 2024
Now, we are leading the fight to extend that victory across the federal government.
WCW is working with Congress to cut all harmful pet experiments funded (or mandated) by the NIH, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency.
Every victory brings us closer to ending taxpayer-funded pet abuse. The solution is simple:
