OPINION
Four years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a recent investigation has revealed that the United States is still funding animal experimentation in Chinese laboratories.
According to White Coat Waste, an organization dedicated to ending taxpayer-funded animal experiments, the National Institutes of Health is currently paying a Chinese lab $2 million to torture dogs.
A bill making its way through Congress could help bring an end to American funding for Chinese animal cruelty.
The Chinese Laboratory Accountability and Watchful Spending Act of 2024 (CLAWS Act) would reveal how the government is funding animal experimentation in China.
If enacted, federal agencies would submit a mandated annual report to Congress detailing their funding of biomedical research in China.
The report would also explain the purpose of the research and whether it includes any animal subjects.
This report would be a vital transparency measure and expose how American taxpayers are propping up Chinese labs, giving Congress a starting point from which to claw back that funding.
"The torture of animals in Chinese labs is not science and should not be funded by American taxpayers," wrote Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, responsible for introducing the bill.
"My CLAWS Act will bring transparency to just how many tax dollars are funding these shady experiments in Chinese labs."
The National Institutes for Health (NIH) has funded Chinese animal labs for over a decade, but the practice received a national spotlight and widespread condemnation during the pandemic.
Investigations revealed that the NIH gave money to the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that turned around and used that money to fund bat experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Evidence points to the COVID-19 pandemic originating as part of a lab leak from this institution. If research into the pandemic’s origins concludes that the lab leak theory is correct, that means that taxpayers were funding the experiments responsible for killing 1.2 million Americans.
The latest investigation into Chinese animal experimentation shows that the United States is spending more than $2 million on a project at a lab called Pharmaron, where researchers are torturing and killing dogs.
Experiments have involved injecting dogs with infectious diseases and severing beagle puppies’ spinal cords.
Documentation shows that researchers kill puppies as young as one day old.
And this is just the animal cruelty occurring at a single lab.
There are currently 28 Chinese animal labs eligible for American funding, and most of them are either directly controlled by or tied to the Chinese Communist Party and China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army.
WuXi AppTec, a company notorious for cruel experimentation on dogs and other animals, is connected to three of these labs.
A bipartisan bill making its way through Congress would defund WuXi AppTec due to its blatant connection to China’s military.
Yet, even though Congress has identified WuXi as a national security risk, the company’s labs are still currently eligible for NIH funding.
Another lab at Peking University has received nearly $750,000 from the NIH to conduct animal experiments.
This lab has been documented torturing beagles, including removing their teeth through painful dental experimentation.
Peking University openly collaborates with the Chinese military on these taxpayer-funded animal experiments.
Funding Chinese animal labs is not just an unethical use of taxpayer money — it is dangerous for Americans.
The COVID-19 pandemic was devastating for our country.
Now, even Dr. Anthony Fauci, the controversial former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been forced to concede that the idea of a Wuhan lab leak is not a conspiracy theory but a real possibility.
American tax dollars could fund the experiments that will create the next pandemic.
Cutting this funding is also a matter of national security.
Since the majority of labs receiving American tax dollars, are connected to the Chinese Communist Party, the United States is actively working against its own global interests. Animal experimentation is an element of bioweapon research — the United States should not be providing any opportunity for Chinese labs to develop weapons on our dime.
The animal experiments taking place in China are horrifyingly cruel and have deadly consequences for animals and Americans alike.
American taxpayers should not be forced to fund these experiments.
Passing the CLAWS Act is a necessary step toward cutting off federal funding for Chinese animal cruelty.
(Editor's Note: A related article may be found here.)
Kelvey Vander Hart is a senior fellow at The Wilberforce Institute.
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