[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TRANSGENDER LAB RATS
AND POISONED PUPPIES:
OVERSIGHT OF TAXPAYER-FUNDED
ANIMAL CRUELTY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT INNOVATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 6, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-3
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
58-804 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia,
Mike Turner, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Gary Palmer, Alabama Ro Khanna, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Pete Sessions, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Andy Biggs, Arizona Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Maxwell Frost, Florida
Byron Donalds, Florida Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Greg Casar, Texas
William Timmons, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Emily Randall, Washington
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Wesley Bell, Missouri
Nick Langworthy, New York Lateefah Simon, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri Dave Min, California
Eli Crane, Arizona Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
John McGuire, Virginia
Brandon Gill, Texas
------
Mark Marin, Staff Director
James Rust, Deputy Staff Director
Mitch Benzine, General Counsel
Lauren Lombardo, Deputy Policy Director
Raj Bharwani, Senior Professional Staff Member
Duncan Wright, Senior Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Jamie Smith, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government
Innovation
Nancy Mace, South Carolina, Chairwoman
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Shontel Brown, Ohio, Ranking
Pat Fallon, Texas Minority Member
Eli Crane, Arizona Ro Khanna, California
John McGuire, Virginia Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Vacancy Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on February 6, 2025................................. 1
Witnesses
----------
Mr. Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President, Advocacy and Public
Policy,
White Coat Waste Project
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Dr. Paul A. Locke, Professor, Department of Environmental Health
and
Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Oral Statement................................................... 6
Ms. Elizabeth Baker (Minority Witness), Director of Research
Policy,
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Written opening statements for the witnesses are available on the
U.S. House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* No additional documents were entered into the record for this
hearing.
TRANSGENDER LAB RATS
AND POISONED PUPPIES:
OVERSIGHT OF TAXPAYER-FUNDED
ANIMAL CRUELTY
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2025
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government
Innovation
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:06 p.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Nancy Mace
[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Mace, Boebert, Burlison, Crane,
McGuire, Brown, Khanna, and Subramanyam.
Ms. Mace. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. The
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and
Government Innovation will now come to order, and welcome. Good
afternoon.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
Good afternoon. Late last year, the White Coast Waste
Project exposed more than $10 million in taxpayer funds that
were spent creating transgender mice, rats, and monkeys. These
DEI grants funded painful and deadly transgender experiments
that forced lab animals to undergo invasive surgeries and
hormone therapies at universities across the country. For
example, the Biden-Harris Administration spent $2.5 million
taxpayer--$2.5 million taxpayer dollars--to study the fertility
of transgender mice. Let that sink in. We spent over $2 million
studying the fertility of transgender mice. One-point-one
million dollars was spent to find out if female rats receiving
testosterone therapies to mimic transgender men were more
likely to overdose on a party drug commonly used in the LGBTQ
community to induce drug-fueled, what is ``chemsex.''
I asked my staff what was chemsex, and I guess it is
something called GHB, which is a date rape drug and also a drug
that is used recreationally. So, we spent over $1 million to
find out if female rats receiving testosterone therapy were
more likely to overdose on a date rape drug. Like, that is what
your taxpayer dollars were being spent on. Federal funds were
also used to forcibly transition male monkeys to see if hormone
therapy made them more susceptible to HIV. Now, I did not know
this until recently, but monkeys cannot be infected with HIV,
yet this federally funded experiment forced them to take
hormone-altering drugs to study a virus they cannot have.
The Biden-Harris Administration was so eager to propagate
their radical gender ideology across all facets of American
society that they were surgically mutating animal genitals.
Like, taxpayer money went to that. So, my question is, were
they castrating mice, castrating monkeys? Were they getting
double mastectomies? The language that they used in many of
these experiments were ``gender-affirming care,'' which I
learned about 3 years ago what that meant. I thought that was
maybe just some hormones or something like that, but
apparently, gender-affirming care is actually surgical
mutilation of genitals, and apparently, it is not just humans
they were doing it to. We were doing it with taxpayer dollars
to animals.
It is well known that, because of the differences between
animal and human biology, animal testing frequently does not
produce results relevant for humans. In fact, 90 percent of
novel drugs that are successful in animal tests fail in human
clinical trials. Today's scientific questions are so complex
that we have well surpassed the time where it is useful or
appropriate to rely on inhumane animal experiments to answer
them. Recently developed technological tools can more
accurately model human biology and identify solutions that are
more useful for human patients, but it is often the Federal
bureaucracy that prevents these new technologies from being
used. Instead of adequately investing in these innovative
alternatives, the Federal Government has continued to funnel
taxpayer dollars toward cruel animal experiments. Today, most
of the 27 NIH institutes and centers conduct or support animal
testing, as does the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, the Department of Veterans Affairs,
the Department of Defense, and countless other agencies.
We have some Beagle puppies here with us today. Beagle
puppies have gone through some of the worst medical
experiments, I mean, drugging them with cocaine, having insects
eat at them and their bodies so much until they die, drugging
them until they die. These are God's creatures, and they are
beautiful. And you can see them sitting in the front row today,
so we thank the folks who are here and brought these beautiful
Beagle puppies here today.
In fact, the U.S. Government spends in excess of $20
billion a year conducting experiments on animals. The White
Coat Waste Project found in 2021 that the NIH--the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a component of
NIH, at the time ran by Dr. Fauci--spent $1.68 million force
feeding toxic drugs to Beagle puppies between 6 and 8 months
old before dissecting and killing them. The conversation we are
having today is important.
In 2022, due to public criticism lobbied about Fauci's
NAIAD by me and other Members of Congress, another $1.8 million
experiment to abuse Beagle puppies in various drug tests was
canceled. So, I want to thank the work of White Coat Waste and
everyone in the room today, others who have been on the
forefront of this fight to end this sick and cruel and barbaric
testing of animals today. Thanks to one of our witnesses,
Justin Goodman of White Coat Waste, the Beagles are here. The
Beagles are a reminder of the real costs of animal
experimentation. So, I am looking forward to this conversation
this afternoon regarding wasteful government spending on animal
cruelty.
And I also want to say before I yield to the Ranking Member
for her opening statement, that this is a nonpartisan issue.
Ironically, in Oversight, while we might fight a lot in public,
we are actually very nonpartisan here. And some of the most
nonpartisan work in Congress comes right through this
Committee. So, I want to thank the Ranking Member. I look
forward to working with you, and I yield to you for 5 minutes
for your opening statement.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, and good afternoon to our three
witnesses. Thanks for being here.
Chairwoman Mace, I appreciated working with you last week
to introduce a bipartisan bill to strengthen Federal contractor
cybersecurity. I was glad our teams were able to connect early
into this new Congress, and on a personal note, my team found
your staff to be very responsive and helpful.
Ms. Mace. Likewise.
Ms. Brown. As the Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, I
look forward to continuing to work with you to modernize and
secure Federal IT systems from potential cyberattacks.
Bipartisan solutions like this are critical to protecting our
Federal system from cyberthreats. I look forward to finding
more common ground and delivering results for the American
people.
I am looking forward to having a productive discussion
today about the scientific innovations and the need for
additional oversight over alternatives to animal testing. Each
year, millions of animals, including dogs, cats, and monkeys,
are used worldwide for research, and I think it is safe to
assume that everyone here in this room would like to see that
number reduced. We are living in a moment where there have been
extraordinary advancements in medical research, utilizing
groundbreaking technology like artificial intelligence, 3D
bioprinting, and robotics that allows us to reduce our reliance
on animal testing. I am especially proud that much of this
innovation is happening in my district, Ohio's 11th, home to
world-class research universities and medical institutions. Not
only does this offer the chance to save animals from suffering,
these methods can actually lead to better and more accurate
results.
From a scientific perspective, one of the main issues with
animal testing is that these trials often fail to produce
results relevant to humans. In fact, 90 percent of new drugs
that are shown to work in animal models fail in human trials.
Dr. Locke, one of the witnesses here today, is going to explain
this phenomenon, and he said that ``Animal biology is just too
different from human biology. Because of this, a great deal of
funding and time is wasted on experiments that, ultimately, do
not translate to human trials. By modernizing our research
methods to avoid the use of animal subjects, we can also save
precious taxpayer dollars.''
Thankfully, there are viable alternatives that are more
ethical, accurate, and efficient ways to study human biology
and disease. We now have the technology to effectively
replicate organs in labs, allowing us to better see how the
human body will respond to drugs and treatments. We have
machine learning systems that can analyze large sets of health
data to develop predictable models of patient response. We have
the capabilities of 3D printing tissue and muscle to test
cosmetics, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals in a highly realistic
way. Just these few examples highlight the amazing work that
has already been done and the important need for continued
investment in the medical field.
At the time, we must institute strong oversight of the
animal testing that is still occurring to ensure that our
Federal dollars are being used ethically and transparently and
that harm to animals is minimized. I believe it is our moral
responsibility to advocate for animals who cannot speak for
themselves. Last Congress, I was proud to cosponsor the Humane
Cosmetics Act, which addresses the use of animal testing in the
cosmetic industry. This bill had massive bipartisan support,
demonstrating the progress we can make in this area.
I look forward to hearing more from our witnesses on these
important issues, and I look forward to future hearings in the
months to come on important topics of cybersecurity, artificial
intelligence, and government innovation. Thank you.
Ms. Mace. Great job. I am pleased to introduce our
witnesses for today's hearing. Our first witness is Mr. Justin
Goodman, Senior Vice President, Advocacy and Public Policy, at
the White Coat Waste Project. It is also Mr. Goodman's birthday
today, and so I would like to wish you a happy birthday and
thank you for being here today. Our second witness is Dr. Paul
Locke, Professor of the Department of Environmental Health and
Engineering at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health. Our third witness is Ms. Elizabeth Baker, Director of
Research Policy at the Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine. Welcome, everyone. We are pleased to have you this
afternoon.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses, if you will
please stand and raise your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Ms. Mace. Let the record show that the witnesses all
answered in the affirmative. We appreciate you for being here
today and look forward to your testimony. You may be seated.
Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written
statements, and they will appear in full in the hearing record.
Please limit your oral statements to 5 minutes. As a reminder,
please press the button on the microphone in front of you so
that it is on when you speak and the members can hear you. When
you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green.
After 4 our minutes, the light will turn yellow, and when the
red light comes on, your 5 minutes is up, and we would ask that
you please wrap it up.
I would like to recognize Mr. Goodman to please begin your
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JUSTIN GOODMAN
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT
WHITE COAT WASTE PROJECT
Mr. Goodman. Thank you. Chairwoman Mace, Ranking Member
Brown, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you
for the opportunity to testify today. As the Chairwoman
mentioned, it is my birthday, and this is the greatest gift I
could possibly ask for. My name is Justin Goodman, and I am the
Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at the
nonprofit, nonpartisan government watchdog White Coat Waste
Project. White Coat Waste has one mission: to stop taxpayers
from being forced to pay for cruel, wasteful, inefficient, and
dangerous animal experiments in labs around the world. Lab
survivors Nellie, Beasley, and Oliver, sitting behind me, are
three of the many reasons why.
Many people do not realize that the U.S. Government is not
only the single largest funder of animal testing in the
country, but in the world. Uncle Sam outspends the private
sector on animal testing 2 to 1. This is not something to be
proud of. Over 20 years ago, the NIH budget doubled and animal
testing skyrocketed, but, overall, people are not healthier or
living longer. It is estimated that over $20 million a year of
taxpayers' money is still wasted annually on ineffective and
inhumane tests on tens of millions of puppies, kittens, and
other animals.
Am I being flippant when I use the word ``waste?''
Absolutely not. The NIH itself has said, ``Animal models fail
to mimic disease or predict how drugs will work in humans,
resulting in much wasted time and money,'' yet agencies
continue to dump billions of tax dollars into animal tests,
despite the horrible return on investment.
Experiments we have uncovered range from the savage to the
stupid: injecting puppies with cocaine, staging hamster fight
clubs, putting dead turtles on treadmills. One of the reasons
this problem has gotten so out of control is the stunning lack
of innovation, transparency, and accountability. Agencies do
not report, or even track, in some cases, how much money is
being spent, how many animals are used, what is being done to
them, where, and what taxpayers are getting out of it. We file
hundreds of FOIA requests every year to glean just basic
information. When we can find out how tax dollars are being
spent, it becomes apparent why Federal agencies fight against
disclosing details.
For example, Senator Rand Paul's December 2024 Festivus
Report highlighted cruel taxpayer-funded cat experiments
exposed by my organization. In one $10 million DARPA grant,
cats have marbles shoved up their rectums and are
electroshocked to make them defecate in constipation
experiments. We have also recently identified over $240 million
in NIH grants for transgender animal experiments, including $26
million in active funding. Some of these tests, as the
Chairwoman mentioned, examine the effects of party drugs on
animals injected with testosterone and how hormones used for
human gender transitions impact the size and shape of animals'
genitals. How does this translate to helping the average
American?
Shockingly, 95 percent of this funding came from Dr.
Fauci's NIAID. Speaking of Dr. Fauci, our group is perhaps best
known for exposing his and USAID's funding for dangerous gain-
of-function animal experiments at the Wuhan lab. We also
uncovered his support for cruel Beagle tests around the world.
Taxpayer-funded animal tests may have caused COVID.
Unfortunately, the government has not learned its lesson
from what happened in Wuhan. Today, there are still 26 animal
labs in China, including labs controlled by the Chinese
Communist Party and tied to the military, approved to receive
NIH funding. This is not just a misuse of taxpayer dollars but
presents a national security threat.
White Coat Waste recently obtained a contract funded by the
NIH and DOD that is paying for 300 Beagles a week to be
restrained and injected with or force-fed experimental drugs in
a Chinese lab. The reason they chose Beagles like Nellie,
Oliver, and Beasley, the contract states, ``Beagle dogs are
docile, cute, and easy to domesticate, so it has been the best
choice,'' not because it is effective, but because it is easy.
This issue extends beyond China. Three hundred and forty-
four animal labs in 52 foreign countries are approved currently
to receive NIH funding. GAO audits prompted by White Coat Waste
have found that NIH shipped billions to foreign animal labs
with essentially no oversight, that the NIH has never visited a
foreign animal lab in over 40 years of overseeing research, and
that some foreign spending is not even tracked. This is how
some spending in Wuhan went undisclosed, and no surprise, Dr.
Fauci's division of NIH is responsible for 95 percent of the
foreign aid. Continuing to send tax dollars to an authoritarian
adversary's animal labs is a recipe for disaster.
With Chairwoman Mace's leadership, we have been able to
halt plans for wasteful and cruel testing on dogs and cats in
other Fauci-funded labs. These tests never should have been
approved in the first place and were only deemed unnecessary
after we exposed them. Our campaigns and legislative work with
the Chairwoman, Reps Boebert, Khanna, Luna, and many others
exposed and shuttered waste, like the government's largest cat
lab that was feeding kittens kitten meat from Chinese wet
markets--yes, that is true; that was a cannibalism experiment--
eliminating VA testing on dogs and cats, and ending nicotine
tests on monkeys at FDA, but there is much more work to be
done. Taxpayers should not be forced to pay billions of dollars
every year for outdated, cruel, and potentially dangerous
animal experiments, especially when most people oppose them.
We are excited to work with you, DOGE, the Administration,
and others to continue cutting wasteful spending on animal
experiments. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, on
my birthday. I look forward to your questions.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I recognize Dr. Locke to please begin
your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF DR. PAUL A. LOCKE
PROFESSOR
JOHNS HOPKINS BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Mr. Locke. Chairwoman Mace, Ranking Member Brown, and
members of the Committee and Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to offer comments at today's hearing. My name is
Paul Locke. I am a professor in the Department of Environmental
Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health. I am an attorney and an environmental health
scientist, and a substantial portion of my work has
concentrated on the uses of nonanimal methodologies in research
and regulatory decision-making, with an emphasis on the promise
that these methods have for both reducing animal use and
improving evidence-based decision-making.
I want to state for the record that the opinions here that
I offer are my own, and they do not necessarily reflect the
views or positions of the Johns Hopkins University or the Johns
Hopkins Health System.
Today, I want to cover three major points. First, the
scientific questions facing us increasingly call into question
our reliance on animal models and demand that we move forward
with more human-centric science. Second, Federal agencies must
play a leadership role in this transition to these new human-
centric models. And third, the development and deployment of
these models represent innovation in places where U.S.
businesses and scientists are and must continue to be at the
cutting edge. Let us start with a discussion about scientific
methods and needs.
The complex scientific challenges that we now face require
that we move away from traditional animal models and embrace
new technologies that do not involve animals but instead
incorporate human biology. These technologies include small,
engineered systems, such as organs on a chip and
microphysiological systems, or three-dimensional groups of
cells, such as organoids, that mimic many of the important
functions of human organs. I would also include AI in this
group. Now, while there is considerable enthusiasm around the
promise of these new methodologies, unless Federal agencies and
departments support their development and recognize their
promise, they will never be able to reach their full potential.
We are not going to be able to replace animals in biomedical
research with the meagre investments that Federal agencies are
now making.
EPA, FDA, and NIH all have important roles to play in
unlocking the potential that these technologies have for
designing better drugs, protecting the environment, and
improving health. Based on our research, there are currently
major gaps in the frameworks needed to support new
methodologies, and it is imperative that the Federal Government
step forward. The Federal approach has been passive and
reactive. What we need is for Federal agencies and departments
to lead efforts to development, implement, and use these
methods, and my written testimony goes into greater information
about what Federal agencies can be doing, and I hope we will
have some questions on that, as well.
Finally, the U.S. must continue to lead the way in these
technologies so that we are setting the global standards in
these fields rather than following other nations. Regulatory
agencies worldwide look to us for leadership, and if the U.S.
leads in alternatives, methods, development, and validation,
our standards will shape international regulations, assist in
the creation of U.S. high-tech jobs, and strengthen our
national economic growth.
So, to summarize, scientific advancements have created
multiple opportunities for us to develop and deploy more human-
centric techniques in toxicology and biomedical research and
transition away from animals in biomedical research.
Championing these nonanimal models is a win-win situation
because we can reduce the number of animals used, as well as
produce data that is more relevant to human health. Federal
agencies and departments must play a central role, and they
have already begun to do so. However, to realize the full
potential that this transition holds, our agencies and
departments must do more, including dedicating additional
resources and leading in efforts to validate these innovative
new technologies. We cannot be world leaders given the meagre
resources that are now available. These markets are expanding
rapidly, and several American companies are well positioned for
success in this market space once the regulatory environment
and framework is open for them.
In closing, I urge the Subcommittee to work with Federal
agencies to further develop the criteria for validation and
acceptance of these new technologies within each department and
in a coordinated way across multiple agencies, as well as
dedicate additional resources to them. Doing so will allow us
to reduce the number of animals in research, better inform
decision-making, and advance American entrepreneurial science.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Dr. Locke. I now recognize Ms. Baker
to please begin your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH BAKER
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH POLICY
PHYSICIANS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDICINE
Ms. Baker. Chair Mace and Ranking Member Brown and Members
of the Subcommittee, thank you so much for the opportunity to
testify today. My name is Elizabeth Baker at the Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine. I work with a team of
scientists, physicians, lawyers, and other professionals to
move medical research, product testing, and advanced medical
training away from using animals. I appreciate the
Subcommittee's attention to this critical subject.
Ending federally funded animal experiments is long overdue.
For generations, tax dollars have paid scientists to conduct
acts that would shock the conscience of most Americans. Dogs,
cats, monkeys, rabbits, pigs, and other animals are used in
experiments that are painful, stressful, and often lethal for
the animals that are subjected to them. Increasingly, it is
recognized across research and testing sectors that animals are
not good surrogates for humans. Over 85 percent of Americans
that were recently polled agreed that animal-based research
should be phased out. Both Congress and the Administration must
take action to ensure that government funding and requests for
animal experiments are stopped, and that instead, a portion of
that funding is reinvested into more effective human-based
approaches.
Our first recommendation is to end Federal support for
wasteful and ineffective animal research. Animal research does
not translate to humans because there are insurmountable
species differences in our anatomy, physiology, lifespan,
disease characteristics, and more. It is known that, for new
drugs, 9 out of 10 are going to fail in humans after they
appeared successful in animals, and paying for those failures
is partially why drugs can take so long, over a decade, to
develop and cost so much to develop, over $1 billion. Worse,
relying on animal data is partially why many human diseases
have no treatments and even fewer have cures. Despite this
knowledge, the Federal Government continues to promote animal
research. The National Institutes of Health fund seven National
Primate Research Centers that house, breed, and experiment on
nonhuman primates with little regard to actual human
translation.
While there are countless examples of cruel research,
consider this. Since 1991, the NIH has given $15 million to a
single heart failure project where dogs are subjected to
multiple major surgeries, they have devices that are stabbed
into their hearts, and then they are forced to run on
treadmills until they die or that device malfunctions. Despite
34 years of this work and hundreds of dead dogs, there has been
no benefit to patients.
Agencies across the Federal Government continue to fund
animal experiments, even when the objectives of the research
have already been shown in humans or could be studied using
human-based approaches, like animal experiments for human
nutrition. Regulatory agencies continue to require animal
testing. Congress and the administration can end these wasteful
experiments by cutting egregious research, ensuring that
research is not funded if these objectives can be studied
without using animals, and ending the Federal animal testing
requirements in regulation and policy.
Our second recommendation is to reinvest some of these
savings from animal research and testing toward evaluation,
acceptance, and use of innovative and more effective human-
based approaches. Methods like organs on chips, reconstructed
human tissues, sophisticated computer models have existed for
some time, but they are only supported at a fraction of the
funding that goes to the animal experiments.
Some Federal efforts have already begun accelerating
innovative human-based methods. The NIH has a national center,
NICEATM, that works to evaluate and advance nonanimal
approaches across Federal agencies through a congressionally
mandated committee, ICCVAM. With more investment and an
expanded purview, NICEATM can accelerate this work and even
address the reproducibility crisis in research. A center at the
NIH, NCATS, is already working to bridge the gap between
medical research and product development by prioritizing
innovative human-based approaches. Recently, the NIH adopted
important recommendations on nonanimal approaches and launched
the complementary program to speed development and use of these
methods.
Each of these are great examples of steps in the right
direction, but the current resource investments just pale in
comparison to the stronghold that animal experiments have held
for decades. Greater support for these efforts will more
quickly advance better science that leads to improved outcomes
for people, while avoiding animal use. There has been so much
recent attention on getting Americans healthier. If we truly
want to make America healthy again, we have to make science
human again.
Thank you so much for this opportunity to testify, and I
look forward to answering your questions.
Ms. Mace. Thank you all for being here today. I will now
recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Goodman, in your written, you state the White Coat
Waste Project identified at least $10 million in NIH grants for
transgender animal experiments. You state that 95 percent of
the funding came from Dr. Fauci's NIAID. Why is the Federal
Government spending taxpayer dollars to create transgender
animals?
Mr. Goodman. It is a great question. I----
Ms. Mace. Your microphone.
Mr. Goodman. Thank you. It is a great question. I mean, I
wonder why they are making cats constipated also. It is a
question that rings around in my head at night when I am going
to bed, why we are funding these things. A lot of the programs
that are funded do latch on to some type of social trend, and
then animal experimenters use it as a money grab, as an excuse
to get NIH tax funds. In this case, DEI grants were used to
fund a lot of this stuff.
Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
Mr. Goodman. So, people who abuse animals find some kind of
excuse to bring in new money, and They will switch their
research program over to something that is trendy to bring tax
dollars into a university. I mean, that is part of the big
problem here is that colleges and universities are taking 25 to
40 percent off the top of every single one of these grants for
indirect costs that go into a slush fund that has nothing to do
with the research, so they are willing to let experimenters do
whatever they want to animals to keep the money flowing in.
Ms. Mace. Some people might describe that as money
laundering. All right. Are sex change experiments that forcibly
transition mice, rats, and monkeys necessary for science?
Mr. Goodman. Absolutely not.
Ms. Mace. Why do these experiments at all--if they are not
producing useful human-relevant research, again, do you think
it is a money issue, follow the money?
Mr. Goodman. Animal testing is big business.
Ms. Mace. As you know, I have been long vocal about animal
experiments and Federal-funded animal testing and worked with
you to prevent Fauci's plan to waste almost $2 million in
taxpayer dollars to maim and murder Beagle puppies, for
example. Why was Dr. Fauci so insistent on poisoning these
puppies, even though, as you state in your written statement,
the FDA does not mandate that human drugs be studied on dogs?
Mr. Goodman. So much of the problem with all of this is
institutional inertia. It is that people just continue doing
the same thing because that is what They have done before.
There was a report the National Academy of Sciences put out a
few years ago about the VA's testing on dogs that Congressman
Khanna actually helped us----
Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
Mr. Goodman [continuing]. Get the NAS to conduct. And they
found that most of the VA's testing on dogs was unnecessary,
and not only that it was unnecessary, but one of the reasons
why is that there is just circular reasoning that they use to
defend it when they propose a new project. They say, well, we
used dogs previously, so we are just going to use dogs again,
and there is no one to break that cycle. There is not enough
oversight to say, hey, maybe we do not need to do this anymore,
maybe there is a better way to do it. It is like, if you only
have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and that is kind
of the problem.
Ms. Mace. Right, and what would have happened to these
Beagle puppies if your organization had not rescued them?
Mr. Goodman. In the case of those experiments?
Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
Mr. Goodman. Those dogs were going to be force-fed and
injected with massive doses of experimental drugs to poison
them to see at what point they got sick or died, and those
tests will have no relevance for the safety and efficacy of
that drug in human beings.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. Dr. Locke, I had a few questions for
you. Can the scientific challenges we face today be saved by
relying on animal testing?
Dr. Locke. No, not all of them.
Ms. Mace. Can you briefly describe how new technologies can
allow us to transition away from animal testing without
hindering scientific research?
Dr. Locke. Certainly. I also want to point out that in my
written testimony, I do try to lay out a roadmap for how that
could happen. But basically, what we need to do is we need to
spend a lot more resources supporting these nonanimal
technologies, such as organs on a chip and organoids, so we can
use those to study many of the phenomena that we are now
studying in animals.
Ms. Mace. OK. Thank you, and, Ms. Baker, what are your
thoughts today--reading your testimony ``for the opportunity to
testify, that it is long overdue''--where do we go from here?
How do we fix the problem?
Ms. Baker. I think we fix the problem by investing in what
is going right. First, we have got to cut a lot of this
terrible animal research. We need to cut the National Primate
Research Centers.
Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
Ms. Baker. We are funding these centers to the tune of
hundreds of millions of dollars every year. We have got to
stop. We have got to stop funding animal experiments outside
the United States, as Mr. Goodman said, that have no oversight.
If you can meet your objectives without using animals, there is
absolutely no reason that you should, and so----
Ms. Mace. Thank you for bringing that up, the amount of
money, the hundreds of millions. I recently found out in the
state of South Carolina, in my district, there is a primate
breeding center and testing site, Alpha Genesis. They have
made, to my understanding, over $100 million from NIH over the
last 20 or so years. This is a boondoggle. It is a racket, and
hundreds of millions of dollars--billions of dollars, in fact--
have been wasted on it. So, I want to thank you all for your
testimony today. Thank you for being here. I would now like to
recognize my colleague, Ms. Brown, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Brown. Again, thank you to our witnesses for being
here. I think it is clear that we all agree that we do not want
to see animals harmed and that there is work to be done to
reduce our reliance on animals for medical and scientific
research. So, I would like to start with you, Ms. Baker. Can
you talk about where you think some of the current gaps, the
oversight, are in the animal experimentation?
Ms. Baker. Yes. I think we have some major issues with
oversight. We do not know, really, how much spending is going
to animal experiments. The public is largely in the dark. We
try so hard to understand this information, and we have to come
up with some of it on our own. It would be great if the Federal
Government would be more transparent in this way. We do know
that, in 2016, the NIH said that for Fiscal Year 2015, 47
percent of extramural grants used mice. Seven-point-four
billion dollars is what that would be in 2024. In 2021, NIH
issued a figure that said about 8 percent of grants go to non-
clinical, nonanimal approaches. Well, non-clinical approaches
really mean the animal tests or the alternatives, and so a ton
of money is going into this.
We wanted to understand for cancer; cancer is one disease
area where it is well known that animals are just really poor
predictors of human outcomes. We get cancer differently. It
behaves differently in our bodies. The failure rate for cancer
drugs is 94 percent. We have cures for cancer in mice. We do
not in humans. And so, we wanted to look at what is the
National Cancer Institute doing. How are they funding? What
does their funding look like? And so, our analysis is not
perfect because it is based on, unfortunately, just the
publicly available information, which is not totally
transparent, but we found that 45 percent of their grants seem
to be animal related. And so, the NIH can really, I think, help
by ensuring that there is transparency around this.
Ms. Brown. I am just going to reclaim----
Ms. Baker. There is also an oversight issue when----
Ms. Brown [continuing]. Because I would like to get to Dr.
Locke, too, but thank you. Dr. Locke, you talked in your
testimony about several different technologies that you have
worked with that are direct alternatives to animal testing. Can
you speak to the success of these technologies and what
Congress can do to be more supportive of the efforts to expand
other innovative technologies in this space?
Dr. Locke. Yes. Thank you for your question. I think there
are at least two things that Congress can do. The first thing
Congress can do is to really get a handle, as my colleagues
have said, on how much money we are spending on these
technologies. The transparency issue is severe. So, since this
is a committee on accountability, I would say the first thing
we need to do is we need to count. We do not have that
information. You do not have that information.
The second thing that needs to be done is that these
technologies need to be what I would call validated, and by
that, I mean they need to be shown that they are relevant and
reliable for a particular purpose. One of my frustrations now
is that the Federal agencies are not doing that. They seem to
be very reactive, and they seem to want folks who are in the
field to bring the data to them. And then they are going to
make the decision, well, we accept this data or do not accept
this data, and that is a really bad situation to be in. These
folks who are developing the methods are entrepreneurs. They
are innovators. They have to know what kind of target they are
shooting at.
The third thing I would say is that we really do need to
get a handle on the animal research we are doing. Again, that
is an area of transparency, and we need to develop metrics so
we can figure out what part of that research is actually
working and what part is not working. And then, as my
colleagues have suggested, I think we should be sunsetting the
stuff that is not working and reinvesting that in these new
methodologies.
Ms. Brown. Thank you very much, Dr. Locke. And as we move
to decrease our reliance on animal experimentation, it is
important to acknowledge that, unfortunately, there are still
companies and organizations that still utilize animal testing.
So, what can be done to move these places toward alternative
models like the ones you have mentioned?
Dr. Locke. Thank you for that question. I think there are
several things that can be done. The first thing that we can
do--and I have some bias here as an academic--is we can train
our students in these new methods. We have to move away from
animal tests and animal research as always the gold standard.
The second thing we can do is we can energize the whole Federal
grant system to make it much more friendly so that folks who
want to use these alternatives can actually go out and get
research money to study them.
Ms. Brown. All right. Thank you, and with that, Madam
Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I will now yield to Ms. Boebert.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate your
advocacy on this and protecting so many animals against this,
as we have heard, savage research that has been taking place,
not only in the United States, but all throughout the world.
And I want to thank our witnesses today for your boldness to
come out because it seems like any time we expose millions and
billions, even, of dollars that are spent toward ridiculous
research programs or just organizations themselves, we are
lashed out at. We are called crazy and conspiracist, and I want
to thank you so much for taking a bold step.
I want to thank you for the White Coat Waste Project
because this is not only saving precious Beagles' lives but
really exposing to the American taxpayer where their money is
going, and I think we all want to be good stewards of our tax
money. We are responsible for those tax dollars here in
Congress, and it is our responsibility to be stewards and
overseers of that. So, I am grateful for DOGE to come in
alongside of us to help expose some of this and kind of get
those wheels turning.
But just for the folks back home real quick, before I get
into my questions, I want to just highlight, a million seconds
is 11-and-a-half days. A billion seconds is 31 years and 7
months. It is, like, this is a huge difference. When we are
talking about billions of dollars going toward the cruelty of
animals, it is much larger than what it sounds because it has
been so watered down to hear that Congress is spending millions
or billions or even trillions of dollars. God forbid if we find
out what comes after a trillion. We will start spending that,
too. But Mr. Goodman, since 1998, how much do you believe that
the Federal Government has spent on animal cruelty testing?
Mr. Goodman. Thank you for the question. As we have been
discussing, it is tough because there is not a lot of
transparency behind actually how much tax dollars are being
spent. I would say we are probably looking at a trillion in
spending by NIH since 1998, and about 47 percent of that is
used for experiments on animals. Half a trillion dollars----
Ms. Boebert. Wow.
Mr. Goodman [continuing]. Could have potentially been spent
on animal testing since 1998.
Ms. Boebert. That is an extreme number. Thank you for that,
and, Mr. Goodman, how much money do you think that NIAID wasted
on unethical and useless and abusive testing? I would imagine
it is about the same because none of this has been very useful
or effective.
Mr. Goodman. Yes. So, Dr. Fauci ran NIAID from 1984 to
2022, and when he left at the end of 2022, it had a $6.5
billion budget. Again, we do not know what percentage that was
for animal testing but probably higher than the average across
NIH. And I just want to make a note here that Dr. Fauci--and I
do not have any issue with him outside of his abuse of
animals--he was not just a paper pusher. He was personally
involved in animal experimentation, experimenting on monkeys,
giving them HIV-like viruses, until the day he left NIH. He was
a lead investigator on grants that were funded by taxpayers to
do that. And he started his career by infecting chimpanzees
with HIV and promising we were going to have an AIDS vaccine
back in the 1980's, which we never got because, as you
mentioned, they do not get HIV. They do not get AIDS. They do
not get sick. So, there has been an enormous amount of waste
and abuse, and, unfortunately, he is gone from government, but
his legacy at NIAID lives on.
Ms. Boebert. Yes. Fortunately, he is gone from government,
but that does not prevent us from holding him accountable for
not only the wasteful spending, but the cruel tests that have
taken place over the years, so maybe you answered my next
question. How many of these treatments have found cures in
humans that come from this cruel kind of testing?
Mr. Goodman. Virtually none. We have heard the statistics
today, and any that have come, it is out of pure dumb luck, and
they are the exception, not the rule because animal experiments
are a dead end. It is pure chance if something good comes out
of it.
Ms. Boebert. And so, I am seeing here, with NIAID, the
budget of spending $6.5 billion in taxpayer money, it has been
used to pay EcoHealth Alliance to import hundreds of Asian bats
into the U.S. for new viruses in labs in Colorado run by the
Wuhan-linked researchers. That is $6.7 for the Colorado State
University in Fort Collins to research bats here in America.
And we have also sent billions of taxpayer dollars to
unaccountable labs in China and other foreign countries.
Implanted aborted baby parts into lab animals, have you heard
of that sort of research?
Mr. Goodman. Yes. We did an analysis a few years ago
showing that over 90 percent of experiments using human fetal
tissue and involving animals were funded by Fauci's NIAID.
Ms. Boebert. Do you know where they are getting the aborted
human fetal tissue?
Mr. Goodman. A lot of it is happening at colleges and
universities that have affiliated hospitals that perform that
procedure.
Ms. Boebert. Madam Chair, I think we need to look into that
as well. My time has expired. I apologize to our other
witnesses. I did have questions for you, but I will submit
those in writing. Thank you.
Ms. Mace. That is wild. I would now like to recognize Mr.
Subramanyam for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Subramanyam. Thank you. I am glad we are having this
hearing today. I actually had the chance to talk to an animal
care program manager at a research facility, and he said
something really interesting. He said, the day we no longer
need animals for research is the day we have succeeded as an
industry. So, I think what you are finding is that even the
people who are employed to run these programs are starting to
realize that we would like to see a path to where we no longer
need animals, and so I think that is really interesting.
One of the things I would like to know, though, is how far
away are we until the technologies can completely replace
animals and we can still be on the cutting edge of science. I
am an animal lover. I am a vegan, even. I very much support
getting rid of animals in all testing, but I want to make sure
that we also do the cutting-edge research that we need to do. I
would ask all three, really--Ms. Baker, Dr. Locke, Mr.
Goodman--if you could address how far away are we, and I also
would love to know what kind of investment do we need. Does it
have to be from the public sector? Is there private-sector
companies going after this, getting venture funding for it, for
instance? I would love to know what we can do and what the path
looks like.
Ms. Baker. Thank you for the question. There are so many
incredible technologies that we have today that we should be
using to be on the cutting edge. So, using animals is not
cutting edge. Using animals is something that has been done for
so long. The innovative approaches, they do not use animals.
They are human-biology-based because we need to understand
human outcomes. If we want to talk about innovation, just take
a look at any other industry. Look at the phone industry. What
was a phone in the 1950's versus what it is today? What was a
car back then versus what it is today? What was science doing
back then versus what is happening today? A lot of the
regulatory tests that are done are the same exact tests that
have been done since the 1950's, so if we are talking about
really being on the cutting edge, we absolutely have to be
embracing and supporting and investing in these approaches.
It is not just our Federal Government. There are many
companies that exist today that have already developed these
approaches. I think they will do much better once we do things
like remove requirements for testing products on animals.
Because there still is so much favoritism in science for using
the animal-based approaches, because people think that you have
to do it if you want to get an NIH grant, you have to do it if
you want to get through the FDA. And so, once those things
really start to change, I think we will see a lot more
investment in the government and outside.
Mr. Subramanyam. And, Dr. Locke, the same question.
Dr. Locke. Yes, thank you for the question. The good news
is that, at least in one area, cosmetics testing, we are pretty
much out of the animal testing business. If you look at other
areas--for example, testing of environmental chemicals, drugs,
and discovery--we are not there yet. How long is it going to
take? I always like to say it is not a matter of if, but it is
a matter of when, but no one has ever asked me to put a time on
that, and I am afraid I cannot do that.
I know what steps we need to take to get there, which are
to really start to fund these technologies, to make sure that
these technologies are valid, to get the Federal Government to
really be very, very much of a leader in these. I do believe
that we have an incredibly entrepreneurial private sector that
is well positioned to be leaders in these in the world market.
You are seeing all sorts of continuous funding of these from
venture capitalists. You are seeing all sorts of use of these
technologies in medical settings. There is a lot of
personalized medicine that is being used, so the future is very
bright. I think it is just really a matter of getting us on the
right pathway to do that.
It is not going to be something, unfortunately, I think it
is going to happen in 5 years or 10 years, but it could happen
in 20, 30, 40, maybe not even within my lifetime, but to be
honest with you, I do not really care as long as we get on that
pathway.
Mr. Subramanyam. Mr. Goodman?
Mr. Goodman. I think I am a little more optimistic. I mean,
we could stop animal testing today. It is useless. It is
misleading us. It is causing us to waste billions of dollars
every year, decades of time and energy and very smart people.
These are some of the smartest people in the world. You cutoff
their funding for animal testing, they are going to figure out
something else to do. The private sector is going to innovate.
Stop forcing companies to test on animals. Stop doling out
billions of dollars to animal experimenters who have no
incentive to innovate and actually solve problems because that
is what keeps the grants coming. They will figure out another
way to do it, and we are going to get solutions that way.
The EPA is a great example. I know my time is up, but the
EPA set a timeline in 2019. The Trump Administration said, by
2035, we are going to phaseout all animal testing, which was
great. It was lauded by Republicans, Democrats. Everyone across
the spectrum thought it was a great idea. Within months of
that, within months of the Biden Administration taking over,
they killed that timeline to phaseout animal testing at the EPA
because environmental groups pushed them to do it, saying that
it was an environmental justice issue, that we needed to do
more animal testing, not less, which is ridiculous. So, I think
that if you take the politics out, and if we are concerned with
science and we are concerned about being good stewards of
taxpayer dollars and the public's interest, we can end animal
testing tomorrow. We are going to be fine, and we are actually
going to be better off. Thank you.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I would now like to recognize Mr.
Crane for 5 minutes.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman, for holding this
hearing today. Thank you guys for showing up. It was just
yesterday in an Oversight hearing that I asked Chairman Comer
if we could get some therapy dogs up here because of some of
the meltdowns that were going on. I had no idea I would walk
into this hearing today and see three beautiful Beagle puppies.
And I have noticed that my mood has already improved, so thank
you guys for bringing them there. I think we should make it
mandatory.
We also talked about, in the Oversight Committee hearing
yesterday, some of the ridiculous initiatives and programs that
need to be cut from our bloated government. And it seems like a
lot of these studies are just another example of our senseless,
out-of-control spending by bureaucrats who never really get
held accountable. I want to start with you, Mr. Goodman. You
said you have estimated over $20 billion in taxpayer money
wasted on ineffective animal research. Is that correct, sir?
Mr. Goodman. Yes.
Mr. Crane. Wow. Mr. Goodman, did you also say that it was
your estimation that $241 million was spent for transgender
animal testing?
Mr. Goodman. Yes, and that, I would say, is the floor, not
the ceiling, because the information on Federal data bases is
pretty incomplete.
Mr. Crane. So, you think we are going to find out that it
was much more money than that for----
Mr. Goodman. Yes.
Mr. Crane [continuing]. Transgender animal testing?
Mr. Goodman. Yes.
Mr. Crane. Can you describe what exactly the American
people's taxpayer dollars were spent on regarding transgender
animal testing?
Mr. Goodman. Yes. In a lot of these cases, they involve
mice, rats, monkeys who are being surgically mutilated and
subjected to hormone therapies to mimic female-to-male or male-
to-female gender transitions, gender-affirming hormone
therapies, and then looking at the biological, psychological,
and physiological effects of the gender transitions, looking at
the effects of taking vaccines after you have transitioned
these animals from male to female or female to male, looking at
the size of their genitals changing after you have put them on
estrogen or testosterone therapies to transition them. In the
example the Chairwoman gave, there was a $1.1 million grant to
give female lab rats testosterone to mimic transgender male
humans and then overdose them with this party drug to see if
female animals taking testosterone were more likely to overdose
on this sex-party drug than animals who were not taking
testosterone.
Mr. Crane. Mr. Goodman, are many of these taxpayer-funded
animal studies shared with the public, or is there a
significant oversight of this research?
Mr. Goodman. You essentially needed a degree in information
technology to navigate the Federal spending data bases to find
any of this stuff.
Mr. Crane. So, what you have found is we are not being very
transparent with what we are spending these funds on?
Mr. Goodman. Not at all, and it is by design.
Mr. Crane. Did you say that Dr. Fauci, in your estimation,
had funded close to 95 percent of these animal research
projects?
Mr. Goodman. Yes. In our analysis, Dr. Fauci funded about
95 percent of the transgender animal experiments.
Mr. Crane. OK. I found in some research that the EPA, under
President Trump, is planning to reduce the Agency's animal
testing by 30 percent by 2025 and completely by 2035. Mr.
Goodman, can you explain why that is a win for the American
taxpayer?
Mr. Goodman. Absolutely. Animal testing is incredibly time-
intensive, inaccurate, and expensive, and it is not very good
at predicting the human health effects or environmental effects
of chemicals and pesticides. And right now, what we are doing
to test human effects is poisoning the lab animals, forcing
them to breathe wildfire smoke simulated in a laboratory by
burning different types of foliage and pumping it into animals'
cages, making them obese to simulate what it would be like for
obese people to be exposed to wildfire smoke, shooting off
handguns and rifles and forcing animals to breathe the
emissions in gun control experiments, and the list goes on and
on. And that is what is happening currently at the EPA after
the Biden Administration overturned the Trump plan to phaseout
animal testing.
Mr. Crane. Mr. Goodman, one more question. You have also
been outspoken about the COVID-19 outbreak stemming from Dr.
Fauci's U.S.-funded research at China's Wuhan lab. What are the
public health risks if we continue some of these outrageous
animal studies?
Mr. Goodman. We are flirting with disaster if we continue
to fund dangerous virus research, both abroad, like in
Colorado, where Fauci greenlit this bat lab. They are trying to
import hundreds of bats from Asia to build a new lab in
Colorado to do virus experiments with Ebola, Nipah, Lassa,
deadly viruses for which there is no cure. It is just a matter
of time before we have another pandemic on our hands if we let
mad scientists run amok with our money.
Mr. Crane. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Mace. All right. I will now yield 5 minutes to Mr.
Burlison.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for this
hearing. I have to admit, whenever I saw the subject line of
this, I was surprised that this was a thing. I am shocked. I
think the American people should be even more shocked and
disgusted to find out what is happening with their dollars. I
think it is actually embarrassing. People from other countries
look at this country as a beacon and as an example, and here we
are spending money, taxpayer dollars, to try to study
transgender animals, like transing animals and testing them on
party drugs? I mean, it is insane.
My question to you, Mr. Goodman, is, I understand that your
organization, White Coat Waste, helped expose the taxpayer-
funded experiments on bats that led to the COVID pandemic. How
did you come about that? What was your investigation? How did
you get the information?
Mr. Goodman. Yes. Thanks for the question. Again, it is an
honor to be here. In 2018, we uncovered a lab at the USDA here,
right outside of the Beltway, where they were breeding hundreds
of kittens every year and then flying to China and other
foreign countries to these disgusting wet markets, and buying
dog and cat meat--Federal employees. They were then putting it
in their carry-on luggage, flying it back to the United States,
and then force-feeding dog and cat meat to kittens in this
government laboratory in Maryland. They had spent $22 million
on this project.
Mr. Burlison. For what purpose?
Mr. Goodman. They wanted to know if people eating dog and
cat meat in China might be exposed to a particular parasite
that could be carried in dog and cat meat.
Mr. Burlison. Wow. That was your first----
Mr. Goodman. So, that was when we first got a sense that
taxpayer dollars----
Mr. Burlison. That was the first clue----
Mr. Goodman. Yes. So----
Mr. Burlison [continuing]. And then you continued to follow
that.
Mr. Goodman. And fortunately, the Trump Administration shut
that project down. They adopted out the cats who were left in
the lab. Two of them went to live with my boss, the president
and founder of White Coat Waste Project. Delilah and Petite
lived happily ever after with him, but that set us on the scent
of foreign aid for animal research. In late 2019, we discovered
a list on the NIH website of all the labs in China receiving
taxpayer dollars, and in January 2020, we went----
Mr. Burlison. There are, like, still 26?
Mr. Goodman. Yes.
Mr. Burlison. Or how many were there at that time?
Mr. Goodman. There were more than 30 at the time, and there
were actually labs in Russia receiving taxpayer money at the
time. In January 2020, we met with the White House to flag for
them that these labs in China, including the Wuhan lab, were
receiving taxpayer funding, and then in April 2020, we finally
went public. Working with Congressman Matt Gaetz and Joni
Ernst, we went public, exposing the grant that Fauci sent to
the Wuhan lab through EcoHealth Alliance to fund the gain-of-
function experiments. And then since then, we have been working
to defund EcoHealth, defund the Wuhan lab, and cut funding for
all animal laboratories in adversarial nations as a matter of
animal welfare, government waste, and national security.
Mr. Burlison. What kind of sick and twisted individual
comes up with a plan to have an experiment where you are going
to turn these animals into cannibals and see what the outcome
is? Where does that come from? Like, what was the thought
process? How did the Ph.D. student who was doing the research
or whatever, how did they make that pitch to get that grant?
Mr. Goodman. If it tells you anything about the
government's thinking, the person responsible for this
experiment is in the USDA's Hall of Fame.
Mr. Burlison. Do you have the name?
Mr. Goodman. Dr. Dubey.
Mr. Burlison. Dr. Dubey. Wow. Let me ask this question, I
just have a little bit more time left. Given the fact that we
have got quantum computing, we now have AI, if they truly are
trying to do research and determine something, could they not
run a lot of this research through advanced technology using
quantum computers, data centers?
Mr. Goodman. Absolutely, and there are studies that have
come out of Johns Hopkins and elsewhere showing that things
like screening drugs and chemicals for human safety are
actually much more accurate and efficient using computer
modeling and AI than testing on lab animals.
Mr. Burlison. On a completely different species, right?
Mr. Goodman. Correct.
Mr. Burlison. With completely different DNA. It would make
sense. Thank you. I appreciate what you do. Thank you for
exposing all of this. It is shameful that we are still sending
money to these, but I will do everything we can to try to stop
this.
Mr. Goodman. Thank you so much.
Ms. Mace. All right. Thank you, Mr. Burlison. With
agreement from the Ranking Member, the Chair and Ranking Member
will each get an additional 5 minutes to ask questions, so I am
going to yield to the Ranking Member first.
Ms. Brown. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, I want to
circle back to you, Ms. Baker, with regards to potential
legislative solutions that Congress can do to support and
increase oversight of animal experimentation.
Ms. Baker. Yes. Thank you for this question. You know, one
of the things that was mentioned is the numbers of animals. It
is unbelievable that in 2025, in the United States, we still do
not know how many animals are used in research. The estimate is
up to 100 million, but we need to know that number, and one of
the reasons we do not know that number is that a lot of the
animals that are used in research are not even recognized as
animals under the law. Mice, rats, birds bred for research,
invertebrates, they are not animals under the law, and so they
are not counted. We can amend the Animal Welfare Act to count
those animals by including them in the definition of
``animals.'' If there is no appetite for amending the Animal
Welfare Act, there are other solutions, and especially focused
on Federal Government spending.
So, the NIH does require recipients of NIH funding to do
some reporting, but it is not transparent, and it is not
accurate. If you receive NIH grants, every 4 years you need to
provide some assurances that you are complying with NIH
policies, and in that is an average daily inventory of animals.
It is just an estimate. It is not transparent. To get that
information, you would have to do FOIA requests. And so, there
is actually some proposed legislation--the Federal Animal
Research Accountability Act--that could change this. Simply
put, if you receive NIH grants, then once a year you need to
report on how many animals have been housed, bred, used in
research, and that should be made transparent.
Ms. Brown. Thank you for that. I appreciate you giving your
testimony today. Mr. Goodman, I do have a question. We keep
hearing about the gender-affirming care, and I do find that
concerning. Just for clarification purposes, can you let me
know, what is that dollar figure and where is the source from?
Mr. Goodman. For those experiments?
Ms. Brown. Yes.
Mr. Goodman. The source of that is NIH RePORTER website and
the USAspending.gov website.
Ms. Brown. OK. And what was the dollar figure?
Mr. Goodman. Let me get it for you, and I have a
spreadsheet with all those projects.
Ms. Brown. OK.
Mr. Goodman. I would be happy to share it. The dollar
figure was $240 million in recent grants; $26 million of those
are active grants.
Ms. Brown. OK. And the----
Mr. Goodman. And those----
Ms. Brown [continuing]. Two-hundred-forty-one million is
for?
Mr. Goodman. So, that is grants that are available in the
NIH RePORTER data base, and again, I have this actual search
saved. If you use search terms ``transgender'' and ``animal
models,'' those were the hits that came up.
Ms. Brown. OK, because I think the article that you cited
in your statement indicated there was $10 million.
Mr. Goodman. Yes. That was----
Ms. Brown. I was just trying to get clarity.
Mr. Goodman. Yes. That was just a sub-selection of the
projects. It was not everything.
Ms. Brown. OK.
Mr. Goodman. Yes.
Ms. Brown. All right. Thank you very much.
Mr. Goodman. You are welcome.
Ms. Brown. All right, and I will yield back.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, and I am going to yield to myself for
5 minutes, and, Congresswoman Boebert, I am going to yield to
you for a minute or two. I think you had a couple extra
questions you want to ask. My first question, Mr. Goodman, what
is the worst animal testing experiment you have ever heard of
and uncovered? There are some really bad ones out there, but
what is the absolute worst one you have ever heard of and
uncovered?
Mr. Goodman. The kitten cannibalism was pretty horrendous:
breeding kittens just to force them to eat cat meat, and then
killing them, even though they were perfectly healthy, after
they collected their feces out of a litter box. I mean, that is
literally what was happening. They were doing that to thousands
and thousands of kittens. The DOJ, until recently, was
stabbing, shooting, and blowing up live animals for training
exercises. We were able to cut that and defund that. The
experiments that the NIH funded and Fauci funded in Tunisia,
where they were putting the dogs' heads in mesh cages and
filling them with biting flies. Yes, there is a lot of
nightmarish stuff that we are being forced to fund, and
taxpayers do not like it, and they do not even know how bad the
situation is. If they did, they would be marching in the
streets.
Ms. Mace. Yes, and Dr. Locke, a question for you. What are
the prospects of a drug therapy that fails animal testing? Is
it likely to receive regulatory approval?
Dr. Locke. Thank you for your question. I am not an expert
on the drug development process, but the way you have described
things, I think if the drug would not make it through the tests
that are required, it would not be able to be in the market. If
I could just add, though, that Congress has really looked
closely at this issue about developing drugs and passed a law,
the FDA Modernization Act----
Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
Dr. Locke [continuing]. That removed the requirements for
testing drugs. And my understanding is that there is bipartisan
support for another law, because Congress feels that the FDA is
not moving more quickly in this area. That is the FDA
Modernization Act 3.0 that would force the Agency to really pay
a lot more attention to using alternatives.
Ms. Mace. OK. And then, Ms. Baker, before I hand it over to
Ms. Boebert, I love your idea of revisiting the Animal Welfare
Act. I would be open to working with you in finding that
language and doing a bill that would insert that language, to
define what an animal is. I think that is very important. I am
all about small parts, big difference. Of course, I would like
to eradicate animal testing altogether, but that seems like an
easy win that we could work on together in a nonpartisan
manner. So, I would love to talk to you about that, and I will
yield the last 2-and-a-half minutes to Ms. Boebert.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the NIH
probably should change their acronym to FOD--Faces of Death.
This very much sounds like a show that my mother would not let
me watch as a child and just hearing how egregious this is.
There are many more things that I have listed here. Of course,
we have heard of the beagles who were in the mesh cages. I do
not know if their vocal cords were paralyzed or if they were
removed, but they were prevented from barking, correct?
Mr. Goodman. Yes. There was a project that Dr. Fauci
funded, actually we worked with Chairwoman Mace to expose, that
they were doing drug testing where they were poisoning puppies
with massive doses of drugs. There was actually a line item in
the contract for a cordectomy----
Ms. Boebert. Wow.
Mr. Goodman [continuing]. To cut the vocal cords so the
dogs would not bark in the lab.
Ms. Boebert. Wow. And so, we have heard that. We have heard
electroshock therapy, even to the point where cats had their
spinal cords exposed, their backs sliced open, and that
electroshock therapy was given to test for erectile dysfunction
and cognitive issues, and so many other things. And so, I ended
my last round of questioning talking about the implantation of
aborted fetal tissues, and you said that universities partner
with clinics who are performing these abortions. Now, how does
that process work and who funds that? Are the mothers of these
aborted babies giving permission? Do they know it is taking
place? Is there taxpayer funding in the crosshairs of that,
other than the actual testing itself?
Mr. Goodman. That is outside of my wheelhouse.
Ms. Boebert. OK. Again, Madam Chair, I think this is
something we should look into. I would love to see just what
permissions are granted and given for that. I know that we have
some regulatory framework within the Department of Health and
Human Services and the Public Health Service Act, and
regulations include prohibitions on buying or selling the
tissue of valuable consideration, but they allow for
compensation for costs associated with the tissue handling. And
so, I would love to look into that, so not only can we prevent
the cruelty in the animals like these beautiful beagles we see
here today, but also even our children who are being harmed in
this process as well, for whatever reason it may be. But, Madam
Chair, I would love to continue to work with you on this and
hold Dr. Fauci, the NIH, NIAID, and everyone else accountable
for this wasteful spending, and I yield.
Ms. Mace. Thank you. I would now like to yield 5 minutes to
Mr. McGuire.
Mr. McGuire. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thanks for
bringing this egregious and evil issue to our attention. It is
not working? All right. The new guy is learning. All right.
Thank you, Chairwoman for bringing----
Ms. Mace. You are doing great.
Mr. McGuire. Thank you for bringing this egregious and evil
issue to my attention. I do not think anyone in my district or
our country would approve. I want to thank you for our
witnesses for coming in. As a veteran, as a Navy Seal, we use
dogs, and they save many lives. We call them furry missiles.
And my wife and I have a Great Pyrenees, and our dog is part of
the family, and I was not aware of what you have brought to our
attention. And after listening to what the Chairwoman talked
about, this being a bipartisan issue, it should be. It is
definitely evidence that evil does exist. We spend more in our
country per day than we bring in per day, which is going to
sink this country if we do not get it under control. I cannot
believe the amount of money that we are spending to do these
crazy things.
I want to start with Dr. Locke. Approximately how many
drugs on the market today rely on safety and efficacy data from
multiple animal models before being allowed to move to human
clinical trials?
Dr. Locke. Thank you for your question. I do not have a
good figure for you other than to say that, as you correctly
stated, the law requires safety and efficacy. And before the
FDA Modernization Act was passed and probably even after it was
passed, most of those drugs almost certainly had to go through
some sort of animal testing, but I cannot put a number on it. I
am sorry.
Mr. McGuire. No worries. I strongly advocate for the
welfare of animals. Dr. Locke, would you agree that eliminating
animal testing entirely from the research and development of
drugs and vaccines could significantly hinder our ability to
assess safety and efficacy, potentially delaying lifesaving
treatments?
Dr. Locke. At the present time, we would need to transition
away from animals. Yes, I do agree with that statement.
Mr. McGuire. That is what I think. All right. Dr. Locke,
given your knowledge in alternative testing models, can you
briefly list and describe different examples of technological
alternatives?
Dr. Locke. Yes. Thank you for your question. One of the
ones I mentioned in my testimony are these things called organs
on a chip, which are just like what they sound like. They are
small, engineered devices, and they mimic the organs that we
have in our body. So, there is a lung on a chip, there is a
heart on a chip, there is a liver on a chip, and those do not
have the same functions that our organs do, but they have
enough so that you can make good decisions based on the biology
that you learn from those. In many cases, you can actually put
human cells in there. You are putting human cells in there to
study chemicals, and you can also begin to link these together
to get a whole body on a chip.
Another area where we have had a lot of advances in
developing these things is called organoids. So, organoids are
groups of cells from, let us say, a brain or a liver or a
heart, and you put them in a dish, and they actually organize
themselves into something that looks like a human organ, but it
is not exactly the same. But again, it has enough function so
you can study it, and you can expose it to chemicals, and you
can expose it to other things so that you might know what is
going to impact it. The important thing to remember about
these, too, is that, in terms of cost effectiveness, you can
put these in a well plate, and you can do many, many studies at
the same time. Unlike with animals, where you have a very, very
slow throughput, these, you have either a medium or a high
throughput. So, those are two examples that I am most familiar
with.
Our other witnesses have mentioned AI computational models.
That is another very, very powerful one, but we have all these
unbelievable techniques now where we can actually use these for
personalized medicine. So, I think everyone here has a medical
school in their district or a university in their district that
does this. But for example, if I was suffering from a disease
and there were two options for treatment for that disease, and
one was, let us say, a chemical and the other was a radiation
treatment, you could actually take cells from my body and you
could regress those cells to stem cells, then make them organ
cells----
Mr. McGuire. I apologize. I am running out of time----
Dr. Locke. Oh, I am sorry.
Mr. McGuire [continuing]. And I have another question.
Dr. Locke. OK.
Mr. McGuire. I wish I had a list of the egregious things
that my colleague Lauren Boebert listed--I could not believe
half of them, or any of them--but I heard them mention kitten
cannibalism, which is unbelievable. Is that true, and if so,
where did it happen? When did it happen? What did they think
they were going to achieve?
Dr. Locke. I do not have any information on that question.
I am sorry.
Mr. McGuire. Does any of the witnesses have----
Mr. Goodman. Yes. My organization exposed that in 2018. The
USDA's Agricultural Research Service, ARS, in Beltsville, had a
lab where they were breeding hundreds of kittens every year and
doing feeding experiments with them, including going to wet
markets in China and Brazil and other places, buying dog and
cat meat, bringing it back to the United States, and force-
feeding that meat to kittens for studies looking at the
prevalence of toxoplasmosis in dog and cat meat in wet markets
abroad.
Mr. McGuire. Proof that evil does exist. Thank you,
Chairwoman, for bringing this to our attention, and hopefully
we can stop this evil. Thank you.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. McGuire. I would now like to yield
to Ranking Member Brown for any brief closing remarks she may
have.
Ms. Brown. I just want to thank the witnesses for being
here, and I look forward to doing some good work on this
Subcommittee.
Ms. Mace. And I want to thank the Ranking Member, and I
look forward to working with you. While we were just talking
offline here, I was saying I want to get on her bill about
cosmetics and animal testing, so all good things today. Today's
conversation builds upon the work that I and many of us on
Oversight and throughout Congress have been working on for
years to end animal testing. There are many of us up here, and
we are not working fast enough. We are trying as hard as we
can, so we appreciate the witnesses being here today.
Last Congress, I introduced the Preventing Animal Abuse and
Waste Act to prohibit the NIH from conducting or funding
research that causes significant pain or distress to cats or
dogs. As an animal lover, I have been disturbed to learn about
these barbaric and unnecessary experiments to create
transgender mice, rats, and monkeys. I, like many, most humans,
have a deep adoration and love for all of God's creatures,
including our animals, and one of my earliest memories as a
child was being in Hampton, South Carolina. I was, like, 4
years old, and my grandmother had just made some great biscuits
and breakfast, and she gave me this bright pink album, and it
was just full of pictures of animals from the newspaper from
Hampton, and ever since then, I have just loved them so much,
and I grew up with seven pets. We had three dogs, three cats,
and a parrot named Julio.
And so, it is just important for the work that we are doing
that all of God's creatures, all animals, are treated with
respect and dignity and love, and that they are not murdered
and maimed and killed on these horrific experiments. So, this
Congress, I will continue to fight to end all animal testing,
including by introducing legislation that prohibits use of
Federal funds for these cruel animal sex-change experiments.
Thank you, again, to our panelists. The issue of taxpayer-
funded animal cruelty deserves our time and attention. I am
thankful for your expert testimony today.
And with that, without objection, all Members will have 5
legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will then
be forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
Ms. Mace. And we are now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:20 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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