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You are receiving this email because you took action to end wasteful government
animal testing. If you no longer believe in ending taxpayer-funded animal
experiments, you can click here to unsubscribe
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[[link removed]]Progress Report for Taxpayer!
Thank you—and our grassroots army—for your generous support to stop the
University of Pennsylvania’s (UPenn) crippling lab. We covered our rapid
response fund. Now we’ll ramp the fight for UPenn’s dogs and cats.
And I have more GOOD NEWS for our feline friends. Remember the “Stokes 7?”
BREAKING: The VA’s Stokes cat lab is under federal investigation!
See below. Following your donations, calls, and petitions, we filed a complaint
documenting illegal kitten experiments at the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Now, the Inspector General confirms an active law enforcement investigation.
Taxpayer, you made this happen. And it’s a big deal. If
WCW wins, we’ll:
1. Save the “Stokes 7” and spare seven more kittens.
2. Shut down the VA’s entire cat experimentation program.
3. Eradicate the final (!) painful cat test inside the U.S. government.
The stakes at Stokes couldn’t be higher. You + WCW can make it happen. Just send this message to Congress.
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You Give. We Win. They Survive.
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P.S. White Coat Waste is a Project to get the government out of the cat and
kitten testing business. Thanks to you, we’re one step closer.
SAVE THE STOKES 7 >>
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Following WCW Complaint, Feds Investigating Cleveland VA's Wasteful and Illegal
Animal Labs
The White Coat Waste Project (WCW) recently exposed more wasteful spending on an illegal plan
[[link removed]] approved by Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough to restart the
agency’s cat experiments at the notorious Stokes lab in Cleveland.
Now, our investigators have also obtained a new trove of VA records via the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) including a never-before-released 2021
internal report detailing how the Cleveland VA’s cat lab and its animal testing
oversight committee extensively violated federal animal welfare laws and
misspent millions of tax dollars.
Now, we’re demanding accountability and a refund! Read our federal complaint
below.
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You may recall that back in 2020, WCW exposed Cleveland VA experiments
[[link removed]] in which healthy and “playful” kittens were subjected to invasive surgeries to
implant electrodes to remotely stimulate their colons and bladders.
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Records obtained by WCW describe Copper as a “friendly” and “playful” kitten.
The VA implanted electrodes into Copper’s bladder and forced him to pee blood
with a remote control. Copper was abused for 14 months and slaughtered at this
taxpayer-funded lab.
Some of the cats had artificial stool made from “bran, potato flour, and saline”
inserted into their anuses for the experiments. Records show the experimental
procedures caused cats distress, seizures, bloody urine, and even depression.
While we were ultimately able to shut down the project
[[link removed]] and save some of the cats like the S tokes Sisters
[[link removed]] , many of the cats were killed and dissected after the painful experiments.
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Now, we’ve obtained a report
[[link removed]] showing that following our 2020 investigation and campaign against the
Cleveland VA’s cat experiments, the VA’s Office of Research Oversight (ORO)
probed the lab in 2021 and documented years of rampant waste and abuse.
The VA found that in some cases, cats at the Cleveland lab did not receive pain relief prior to invasive and
harmful procedures . The report also documented other disturbing violations of federal policies
and laws including:
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Additionally, the VA documented that the Cleveland lab’s animal experimentation
oversight committee was illegally constituted from March to December 2020
because it did not include a member of the general public and a
non-animal-experimenter—both required by federal law to ensure the white coats
don’t run amok.
Federal policies state that this failing voids all approvals and other decisions
made by the committee during the nine-month period, and that any government
spending on animal experiments during this noncompliant time is prohibited.
We don’t yet know exactly how much money the Cleveland VA wasted on its unlawful
animal experiments, but the VA ORO reported that Cleveland’s labs were
experimenting on cats and other animals in 38 separate taxpayer-funded projects
at the time of its review.
We do know, however, that the $4 million National Institutes of Health (NIH)
grant that funded the Cleveland VA’s cat experiments raked in $1,228,799 in
taxpayer dollars in 2020 and 2021 when the facility was breaking the law.
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It’s high time for accountability!
We’ve just filed a new complaint with the Inspectors General of the VA and the
National Institutes of Health demanding that they enforce the law and claw back
all taxpayer dollars spent on these illegal and abusive animal tests at the
Cleveland VA and suspend any projects that have not received proper reviews and
approvals in 2020.
This isn’t the first time that WCW campaigns and federal complaints targeting
the VA’s wasteful animal testing have prompted internal agency investigations
that confirmed our allegations of waste and abuse. Following our work, the VA
has repeatedly identified non-compliant and abusive experiments on dogs
[[link removed]] ,
[[link removed]] [[link removed]] primates
[[link removed]] , [[link removed]] and other animals and associated unlawful spending on them.
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[[link removed]]Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay $20 billion+ for wasteful government animal experiments.
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White Coat Waste Project (WCW) is a 501(c)(3) government watchdog. Contributions
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