White Coat Waste Project



This is absolutely wild Taxpayer. Can you believe you are
paying for this s***?! $17 million in tax dollars to turn animals
into drug addicts and alcoholics? Nice work NIH.














Taxpayer - this is absolutely wild:


"Pregnant mice force-fed alcohol as US quietly funds $17m of
animal experiments in UK"
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has more tax money
than it knows what to do with... so it's shipping your tax money
to Great Britain to get animals in labs hooked on drugs and
alcohol??

Yep, it's just as ridiculous as it sounds Taxpayer. Check out the
Independent's coverage below.

You won't believe what you read.




Daniel Lopez
Campaign Coordinator
White Coat Waste Project


P.S. PLEASE SHARE: Taxpayer, our
blog covers what WCW is doing to cut this waste. Please take a
quick read, then share with your friends and family to spread the
word about how their hard-earned money is being wasted!





LEARN MORE »








Pregnant mice force-fed
alcohol as US quietly funds $17m of animal experiments in UK

By Jane Dalton

The US government is quietly using millions of dollars to fund
experiments on animals in UK institutions, including making
zebrafish addicted to nicotine.

Pregnant mice were forced to consume alcohol to cause birth
defects in other experiments behind closed doors at another UK
university, also funded by American tax payers.

Other UK projects paid for by the US government have been at
Queen Mary University of London; Public Health England; a
Japanese company with a base in Cambridge; and the government's
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down.

In all, nine projects in Britain have received more than $17m
(£13.1m) from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) since
they were launched, according to the US-based White Coat Waste
project, which campaigns against taxpayer money being spent on
animal experiments.

Oxford University has received more than $4.9m since 2003 for
tests in which expectant mice were given alcohol to cause birth
defects, as well as for human medical studies.

Researchers told the NIH their goal was to develop new methods
for screening for the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure, using
smartphones and tablet devices "to detect the facial effects in
children and adults and new ways of analysing ultrasound images
to detect facial and brain effects in the foetus".

Zebrafish were made to develop an addiction to nicotine at
London's Queen Mary University, work for which the US has paid a
total of $708,466 so far over 18 months.

The fish were mutated for "sensitivity to nicotine reward and
impulsivity" to test the theory that genes that change after
chronic nicotine exposure are susceptible to addiction.

US Republican senator Rand Paul, an eye surgeon who is also chair
of the Senate's federal spending oversight subcommittee,
condemned the project.

"Everybody agrees that nicotine addiction is a problem. But you
have to be smoking something other than nicotine if you think the
solution is to ship American tax dollars abroad to addict
Zebrafish to nicotine," he wrote in a report last month.

The NIH offers grants to scientists in the US and worldwide for
biomedical research aiming to prevent disease and disability and
extend healthy life.

Another project, looking at cocaine addiction, by Heptares
Therapeutics, a Japanese company with a Cambridge research
centre, has received more than $5.5m since 2014, the NIH database
says. It does not reveal which animals were involved or other
details.

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and Public
Health England (PHE), both based in Wiltshire, received sums for
five projects: three of $3,500, one of $4,140 and one of $1,680
for projects from 2017 to 2024, looking into infectious diseases
using animals.

University College London dropped plans to carry out procedures
involving sheep and rabbits, electrically stimulating their
nerves to find treatments for human conditions such as epilepsy
and arthritis, which originally involved an NIH grant application
of $776,000.

Researchers from the University of Bath worked on medicinal
chemistry with counterparts in the US who received funding to
make rhesus monkeys addicted to heroin, cocaine and alcohol.

Some of the studies, aimed at finding ways to prevent people who
have come off opioids and cocaine from relapsing, involved
testing the efficacy of preventive drugs on the animals.

The grants did not go to Bath scientists but to those at the
University of Texas Health Science Centre at San Antonio, who
fitted the animals with catheters, allowing them to
self-administer drugs.

The White Coat Waste project says it tried to launch an
advertising campaign about the monkey testing, but the adverts
were banned by authorities.

The watchdog group gathers its information from government
databases, freedom of information requests, members of congress,
whistleblowers, official websites and scientific publications.

Anthony Bellotti, founder and president, said: "It's high time to
stop shipping hardworking Americans' money to the UK for nonsense
like hooking fish on nicotine and addicting primates to heroin.

"Most Americans oppose animal testing, and with a
nearly-trillion-dollar deficit and so many US scientists who
can't find jobs in their fields, there's no excuse for sending
American tax dollars overseas to abuse animals and enrich foreign
individuals and institutions."

A spokeswoman for Queen Mary University of London said: "Medical
research at world-class universities like Queen Mary saves and
enhances the lives of millions of people worldwide, with
breakthroughs often coming as a result of research involving
animals.

"Indeed, UK law requires that all medicines should be tested in
at least two different species of live animals before their use
in humans.

"However, it is important that animals are used for research only
when it is absolutely necessary and no alternative is available.
In this case, the genetic characteristics that zebrafish share
with mammals provide insights that could help scientists to
develop treatments for addiction in humans."

Work is overseen by an animal welfare and ethical review body,
she said.

Oxford University said most of its biomedical research used
animal alternatives, adding: "Sadly, we are not yet at the point
where these techniques or computer modelling could entirely
replace the need for animal research.

"The university has consistently been at the forefront of
innovative and life-saving science. Our research provides vital
insight into cancer, strokes, heart disease, diabetes, HIV,
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and many more diseases that cause
suffering and death."

A spokesman said researchers commit to replacing animals,
reducing numbers used and refining experiments to ensure animals
suffer as little as possible, he said.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "DSTL is responsible for
developing new vaccines, therapies and treatments that can save
military lives and benefit civilians and which could not,
currently, be achieved without the use of animals in research.

"DSTL is committed to reducing the number of animal experiments
and only applies for licences if the research aims cannot be
achieved without animal experiments."

A PHE spokesman said: "Most of our research is carried out
without involving animals; however, some remains essential to
understand how infections are transmitted and to prevent the
spread of disease, as well as studying how environmental factors
affect human health." PHE has signed up to the Concordat on
Openness in Animal Research, he said.

The three UK universities receiving funding have also signed the
concordat.

A University of Bath spokesman said it did not conduct animal
experiments with non-human primates, adding: "We conduct
biomedical research aimed at understanding disease and developing
new drugs, including new treatments for opioid abuse. We work
with small rodents and some fish species."

Heptares Therapeutics has also been approached for comment.

A statement by NIH said all animals used in research it funds are
protected by laws, regulations, and policies "to ensure the
smallest possible number of subjects and the greatest commitment
to their welfare". Institutions receiving funds must follow the
Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, the
statement said.

It added that foreign grant recipients must provide NIH with an
assurance and certification of compliance with laws, regulations
and policies of the jurisdiction in which the research is
conducted, and a pledge to follow the International Guiding
Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals. NIH
"encourages foreign recipients to use the standards in the Guide
for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals". In the UK the Animal
Welfare and Ethical Review Body evaluates proposed research.

"Alternatives" - the three Rs (reduce, refine, replace) - are
embodied in an NIH ethical framework document which states that
mathematical models, computer simulation, and in-vitro systems
should be considered wherever possible.





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To stop taxpayer-funded
animal tests, we must first stop the $15 billion+ in wasteful
government spending.

We find, expose, and
de-fund wasteful government spending on animal experiments. To
change public policy, we unite liberty lovers and animal lovers
with hard-hitting investigations and public policy campaigns.










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