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Taxpayer, check out this headline:

“GOP Lawmakers, Biden Come Together on Cats” -THE xxxxxx

In today’s political climate, it's hard to believe that Republicans would work
together with President Biden on anything at all...

Yet that’s exactly what happened – a reminder of just how important our work
truly is.

I’ve enclosed the entire article below. PLEASE READ IT – it's incredible!

Anthony Bellotti

President & Founder

White Coat Waste Project



P.S. As far as we know, this is the first time ever that the U.S. government has
defunded animal labs across an entire country! We didn’t just end NIH funding
for Putin’s cat experiments; we cut every single animal test on every single
species in Russia – monkeys, rats, mice, etc. – all of it.

So thank you, Taxpayer, because this historic victory for
lab animals wouldn’t have been possible without your support.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[[link removed]]


[[link removed]]

GOP Lawmakers, Biden Come Together on Cats

Published by The xxxxxx
[[link removed]] | April 18, 2023

Republicans in Congress, acting on what appears to be genuine concern for other
living things, are praising President Joe Biden for helping bring about an end
to U.S. government funding for the alleged torture of cats in Russian biomedical
research facilities.

This is not a spoof. Every statement in that sentence is true.

Yes, the United States has funded cruel cat experiments in Russia through the
National Institutes of Health. Yes, GOP members of Congress urged Biden to be
tougher on Russian President Vladimir Putin—a man the Republican party’s leader,
Donald Trump, adores. Yes, the Biden administration seems to have pulled the
funds, as urged. And yes, the GOP lawmakers are giving Biden credit for it.

“Having led congressional efforts over the past year to stop the flow of
taxpayer dollars to Russia’s inhumane and unaccountable animal testing labs, I’m
proud that the Biden administration finally listened to reason and halted this
wasteful and dangerous spending,” GOP Representative Lisa McClain of Michigan,
the lead advocate on this issue, said in a statement quoted by the Washington Times . The conservative outlet’s April 9 article
[[link removed]] was headlined, “NIH cuts off funding for Russian lab work, animal experiments
after Biden order.”

Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, meanwhile, called the Biden administration’s action
“a great first step, but we need to claw back much more money. If the
administration doesn’t stop funding foreign labs owned and operated by our
adversaries like Russia and China, I plan to introduce legislation to do just
that.”

In July 2021, the White Coat Waste Project, a watchdog group that opposes
research using animals, identified
[[link removed]] $140 million in NIH funds that went to labs in at least 29 countries in fiscal
year 2020. Of particular concern were NIH-funded
[[link removed]] experiments
[[link removed]] involving cats at the Pavlov Institute of Physiology in St. Petersburg, Russia,
which, between amounts it received in 2018 and in 2021, has garnered about
$770,000 in U.S. tax dollars. White Coat Waste has described
[[link removed]] these experiments, meant to study spinal injuries, as “torture.”

GOP lawmakers including McClain have repeatedly pushed for the U.S. funding to
be pulled. The Washington Times said it was told by the NIH’s office of extramural research that the nation’s
premier medical research agency “currently does not fund any research in
Russia.” The Times , citing the NIH’s grant reporting system, said the Pavlov Institute cat
experiments had been “budgeted through the end of May 2023,” meaning there had
been a planned ongoing flow of funds.

Separately, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on March 30 released a report [[link removed]] alling for increased NIH oversight of grants “to foreign organizations for
research involving animals.” The GAO’s recommendations include site inspections
and third-party verification of facility reports attesting to the foreign
research facilities’ compliance with animal welfare standards. As it is, the
report says, “NIH may be missing opportunities to identify and respond to
possible instances of noncompliance with animal care and use standards at
foreign research facilities.”

These developments still leave room to wonder whether the Biden administration
was moved by the arguments it heard from McClain and others, or whether it
independently just decided to do what they asked. Dan Wunderlich, a spokesperson
for McClain, told me in an email that “we only know the timing of the
termination of funding as outlined in the Times article. The White House never reached out to us to give a heads up or anything
like that.”

I emailed
[[link removed]] the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research last Tuesday, asking whether this
termination of grant funding “was done in response to concerns that were raised
by Rep. McClain and others.” An automatic response said “Someone from our office
will be in touch within the next five business days.” On Friday, after I pinged
the office again, Assistant Grants Policy Officer Priyanga Tuovinen wrote, “ We are currently reviewing your inquiry and will follow-up as soon as possible .” He included some boilerplate about how “The NIH has integrated the highest
level of public accountability into its scientific mission through access to its
research data.”

This morning, the NIH Office of Extramural Research provided this largely
non-responsive response:

As we reported to The Washington Times , NIH currently does not fund any research in Russia. Furthermore, NIH does not
discuss grants compliance reviews on specific funded awards, recipient
institutions, or supported investigators, whether or not such reviews occurred
or are underway.

Stephen Dinan, the Washington Times reporter, said NIH did not tell him more about whether the contacts from
lawmakers were a factor in the decision to suspend funding. He said in an email
that he did not know “what the factors were and did not draw a direct causal
link, only a time sequence.”

But it is a sequence that suggests that, on this issue, the GOP and Biden were
able to find common ground and reach a mutually agreeable result, as crazy as
that sounds.

McClain, notes Wunderlich, has “led the charge on defunding these Russian labs,”
beginning in October 2021, when she introduced
[[link removed]] legislation to prevent U.S. tax dollars “from being used to conduct or support
research on vertebrate animals in foreign countries that are foreign
adversaries.” The bill, called the Accountability in Foreign Animal Research
(AFAR) Act, was referred
[[link removed]] to committee, where it died. McClain has said she plans to reintroduce it this
session.

On March 2, 2022, a week after Russia invaded Ukraine, the White Coat Waste
Project released a report
[[link removed]] highlighting the cat studies at the Pavlov Institute, which “received nearly
$550,000 from the NIH in 2021 alone and another $220,000 back in 2018!” It even provided links to the funded
[[link removed]] experiments
[[link removed]] .

As part of one of these experiments, the group said, “The cats are knocked out
and their brain stems are severed, and sometimes, pieces of their brain are even
removed. The ‘zombie’ cats then have electrodes implanted into their spines and
are forced to walk on treadmills.”

It included an illustration from the actual study:


[[link removed]]

The next day, March 3, McClain put out a press release
[[link removed]] regarding NIH funding of the Pavlov Institute’s “invasive experiments on cats.”
It quoted Justin Goodman, senior vice president at White Coat Waste Project,
saying “Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay white coats in the Russian
government to torture and kill cats in wasteful experiments.”

In a letter to Biden
[[link removed]] dated March 10, 2022, McClain and five other Republican House members—Nancy
Mace (R-S.C.), Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), Brian Mast (R-Fla.), Diana Harshbarger
(R-Tenn.), and Rodney Davis (R-Il.)—urged that the president take action to turn
off this funding spigot.

“Our democratic ally Ukraine is facing repeated, daily attacks from invading
Russian forces,” the letter said, noting that “the United States and other
nations have come together and levied numerous sanctions meant to cripple the
Kremlin. We write you today demanding you to target another sector of the
Russian state: research labs funded in part by U.S. tax dollars.”

The letter, citing the White Coat Waste Project’s findings, said the Pavlov
Institute of Physiology had received hundreds of thousands of U.S. taxpayer
dollars, including for “horrific and barbaric experiments” on 18 healthy cats
who had “portions of their brain removed, while electrodes were implanted in
their spines. The cats were then subsequently forced to walk on a treadmill for spinal cord
experiments.”

On June 11, 2022, three months after receiving this letter, the Biden White
House issued
[[link removed]] new guidance on scientific and technological cooperation with Russia. It
advised federal agencies to “wind down” their funding of and relationships with
“Russian government-affiliated research institutions.”

“Such projects and programs that commenced and/or were funded prior to Russia’s
further invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 may be concluded, but new projects
in affected subject areas will not be initiated,” the guidance said. “Applicable
Departments and Agencies have been advised to curtail interaction with the
leadership of Russian government-affiliated universities and research
institutions, as well as those who have publicly expressed support for the
invasion of Ukraine.”

The White House guidance document said that “until Russia ends its war against
Ukraine, the United States government will seek to limit engagement with the
Russian government in various international projects and initiatives related to
science and technology, except where required by our obligations under
international law.” It did not make specific reference to research involving
animals.

In September, McClain sent a letter to the NIH demanding
[[link removed]] answers regarding the cat experiments. “Earlier this year, the Biden
administration committed to stopping the flow of tax dollars to draconian
Russian animal labs, which they still have not done,” she wrote. This new letter
“seeks to determine whether the Biden administration is serious about its
commitment to stop sending tax dollars to Russian labs, especially during the
countries ongoing war in Ukraine.”

All that seems certain is that funding for the Russian labs was discontinued.
For the lawmakers and the White Coat Waste Project—not to mention the cats—that
felt like a win.

“As far as we know, this is the first time ever that the U.S. government has
defunded animal labs across an entire country,” said Goodman of the White Coat
Waste Project in an email
[[link removed]] April 10, the day after the publication of the Washington Times article.

Said Anthony Bellotti, the group’s founder and president, “We applaud President
Biden for subsequently defunding every single animal experiment across Russia,
and we thank Rep. Lisa McClain, Sen. Joni Ernst, and bipartisan leaders in
Congress for working with us to save U.S. tax dollars, protect national
security, and end animal abuse by cutting off all foreign enemies’ labs.”

McClain, for her part, celebrated with a tweet
[[link removed]] , linking to the Washington Times article: “The @NIH has been sending American tax dollars to Russian labs to
experiment [on] and torture innocent animals. I am proud to have led the charge
to DEFUND this pointless, wasteful, and cruel NIH initiative.”

Who knows? Maybe Biden, who has
[[link removed]] a presidential cat named Willow, will continue to defund studies like this, in
response in part to pressure from the GOP, and also because it seems like a
humane thing to do. Perhaps this episode can serve as a reminder that
Republicans and Democrats can sometimes make common cause. Stranger things have
happened. Just not very often.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include a comment from the
National Institutes of Health.

Taxpayer, the government is still shipping our tax
dollars to labs in China and other foreign countries where there is little no
protection for lab animals.

Please click here
[[link removed]] right away and urge Congress to cut funding for ALL foreign labs!

CONTACT CONGRESS
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