The National Institutes of Health has announced that it will begin phasing out barbaric dog and cat testing, following months of pressure from the Gateway Pundit’s reporting on the relentless investigations of the taxpayer watchdog White Coat Waste Project (WCW).
Just two days prior, eleven members of Congress signed a letter urging NIH to end its funding for the cruel dog and cat experiments approved under Dr. Anthony Fauci. The letter, penned by Rep. Paul Gosar, cited WCW and Gateway Pundit directly.
The changes were announced in a sit-down conversation posted to YouTube between NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Nicole Kleinstreuer, Acting Deputy Director for Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives at the NIH.
The duo explained that they are currently required by law to maintain grants that have already been awarded, but can begin phasing them out.
“We are constrained under the law to leave those existing grants in place,” Kleinstreuer said.
“For now,” Bhattacharya interjected.
“But to phase them out, we are working tirelessly behind the scenes,” Kleinstreuer said, explaining that they are creating an action plan to end them as fast as they are legally allowed.
WATCH:
Kleinstreuer had recently told NPR, “We have no intention of just phasing out animal studies overnight. We know that animal studies are still very important and often scientifically justified.” Despite Kleinstreuer’s defense of cruel and wasteful animal testing, PETA, which claims to be a leading animal rights organization, has repeatedly praised and covered for her.
Though Kleinstreuer stated during the video, in no uncertain terms, that she is against testing on dogs and cats, she did not mention monkeys or any of the other animals being tortured under her watch.
EXCLUSIVE: NIH Renews Grants for Harvard Monkey Lab, Fauci’s Beagle and Primate Tests
As the Gateway Pundit previously reported, NIH has recently reauthorized millions in funding for THC testing on monkeys at Harvard and Anthony Fauci’s infamous “Monkey Island” project.
Still, WCW celebrated their latest win in a post on X.
https://t.co/WPg9PppcBL
— White Coat Waste (@WhiteCoatWaste) July 11, 2025
Anthony Bellotti, president and founder of WCW, said in a statement:
Just 48 hours after Congress grilled NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya using exclusive White Coat Waste investigations, the NIH now says it will phase out dog and cat labs—a stunning reversal triggered by pressure from our relentless campaign to protect pets from government abuse.
White Coat Waste is encouraged that NIH has finally committed to phasing out dog and cat labs, but it shouldn’t have taken our 90-day campaign of wall-to-wall ads, thousands of calls and emails, and Congressional demands to force Bhattacharya to join other Trump agency heads in prioritizing cutting wasteful spending on pet abuse in the labs he funds around the world.
This dramatic about-face, triggered by White Coat Waste’s campaign, follows weeks of NIH Deputy Director Nicole Kleinstreuer defiantly doubling down on funding animal labs. She told NPR she had “no intention of just phasing out animal studies overnight.” Then, as recently as July 4, Kleinstreuer insisted in a social media post responding to White Coat Waste’s campaign that it’s an “unfortunate truth” that animals and taxpayers must wait indefinitely for alternatives. Astonishingly, legacy animal rights groups rushed to applaud and defend her while attacking us for demanding action and accountability from the government’s single largest funder of animal testing.
Now, Bhattacharya and Kleinstreuer are playing the blame game and claiming legal constraints and past NIH leaders are the reasons they haven’t shut down dog and cat labs. But the truth is—as our exclusive investigation has documented—that NIH has renewed Fauci-era funding for these labs under Bhattacharya’s watch. The Bhattacharya-Kleinstreuer NIH has also bankrolled millions in brand new dog experiments, despite having full authority to cut active grants and prohibit new ones, which is exactly what other Trump-aligned agencies are already doing—in direct coordination with White Coat Waste campaigns.
For months, we’ve told Bhattacharya and other NIH officials the truth: if dogs and cats are forced to wait for “alternatives”—ones that don’t exist and often aren’t necessary—they’ll be waiting forever.
Animals can’t wait. We won’t either.
Make no mistake: the devil is in the (missing) details. NIH may have committed to a phase out of dog and cat testing, but it still hasn’t set a timeline or issued a spending freeze. Meanwhile, working with White Coat Waste, Trump’s Pentagon cut millions in funding for cruel cat experiments virtually overnight and banned all Navy-funded dog and cat testing, and the EPA is shutting down its animal labs and adopting out the survivors. The NIH can do it right now too.
Our message to NIH is very simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness.”
WCW remains the only animal advocacy organization to shut down any government primate lab in nearly a decade, any government dog testing labs in almost 20 years, and any government cat lab in the last 40 years.
Read the full article here