By Isabella Brady
#BeagleGate: A social movement was recently founded in an uprising against animal cruelty and experimentation following the discovery of a Beagle lab in Tunisia, a region of Northwest Africa. Funded by the U.S. government, the National Institute of Health, or NIH received negative publicity for a breeding facility feeding a variety of lethal experiments.
As the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for over forty years, Anthony Fauci oversees the medical branch along with the work and experimentation over its multiple organizations –one of which being the NIH. While Fauci’s involvement remains largely uninvestigated, watchdog tax groups such as the bipartisan White Coat Waste Project (WCW) ,who advocate under the IRS for the exemption of taxpayers dollars in cruel animal experiments,investigated the phenomenon independently.
One experiment allegedly aimed “to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hundreds of infected sand flies” according to the WCW, who sent investigators to the scene, claiming NIAID government records detailed “over $375,000 in funding” to the research. Known as PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals refer to NIH’s experiments discovered in the past, such as “Silver Spring Monkeys”, cases in which young chimpanzees were evacuated from experiments deemed as animal cruelty. Thus, PETA continues, NIH has “a history that proves that at the agency, the rot has run deep for decades”. Determining the records were falsely noted in the PLOS journal of Neglected Tropical Diseases, the WCW has publicly withdrawn their claims to the previous assertion, saying “the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Wellcome Trust did not provide any funding for this research and any such claim was made in error”.
However, upon further scrutiny, journals published by NIAID documented similar research on beagles –again– assessing the parasitic disease found in the tropics: leishmaniasis. The taxpayer funded experiments reportedly studied a vaccine to prevent the tropical disease, saying:
“In the NIAID-supported study, twelve dogs were immunized with the experimental vaccine at the Pasteur Institute of Tunis, and then let out in an enclosed open space during the day, during high sandfly season in an area of Tunisia considered to be hyper-endemic for canine leishmaniasis. The goal of the research was to determine if the experimental vaccine prevented the dogs from becoming infected in a natural setting,” reported the NIAID in their public statement.
Although the federal organization claims “dogs were the necessary animal model for the research, and the researchers ensured that the dogs experienced no discomfort” another study conducted by the NIAID in 2016 resulted in death: as beagles were intentionally infected with the deadly disease, developing exterior lesions, and ultimately euthanized.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, the WCW discovered new research detailed in the NIAID’s October post. In such documents, the organization outlined one of a myriad of beagle experiments, analyzed by the WCW and deemed “cruel and unnecessary drug toxicity tests”. The anti animal cruelty organization later describes the experiments, saying “in the tests, 44 beagle puppies, who were just 6-8 months old were repeatedly injected with or force-fed an experimental drug for weeks, and then killed and dissected”. NAID qualifies the information, admitting to opening a contract with a nonprofit research institute, named SRI International, under the objective of treatment of HIV infection with preclinical pharmacology research. Nevertheless, the company destined the beagles to death after the obtained federal documents revealed that their toxicological results would be studied through organ dissection, following a scheduled day for the euthanizations of all forty-four dogs. According to the WCW, all dogs were silenced through a series of vocal cordectomy “so they couldn’t bark in the lab while they were being abused”. The NIAID justifies their conduct on the grounds that “decibel levels that exceed OSHA [Occupational Health and Safety Administration] allowable limits for people… can lead to hearing loss” as reported in their statement. The experiment federal investigators view as inhumane and futile cost taxpayers a total of $1.68 million dollars.
Presently, Fauci’s knowledge and participation in such experiments is being evaluated. While Fauci has not made any public claims regarding the experiments, Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at WCW, Justin Goodman reported “NIAID has already admitted to doing beagle experiments inside the federal lab run by Fauci, and as the director of the division of the NIH that funded all of these beagle experiments, the buck stops with him”. In coming months, the national health leader and advisor through the COVID-19 pandemic could be determined liable for the documented animal cruelty conducted under Fauci’s leadership… or not.
Learn more about the NIAID’s October post here
Learn about the WCW’s perspective on NIH experiments here
Visit the WCW website here