Is US Government Paying the Kremlin to Torture Cats?

White Coat Waste is a taxpayer watchdog group with a shocking new exposé: WCW alleges the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been shipping tax dollars to a Kremlin-run animal testing lab for cruel and wasteful experiments on cats. WCW charges that, as recently as November 2021, the US NIH shipped $549,331 (via a university) to Russia's state-run Pavlov Institute of Physiology for experiments in which healthy cats had portions of their brains removed, electrodes implanted in their spines, and were forced to walk on a treadmill in spinal cord experiments. WCW says another $221,135 in NIH funding was sent to the same Russian lab for cat experiments in 2018. We invite the NIH, the Pavlov Institute and any other related entity on to respond. Visit whitecoatwaste.org for more. WCW says the NIH currently authorizes four different Russian state animal testing labs including the Pavlov Institute to receive taxpayer funding. Last year, following WCW's Worldwide Waste investigation, Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) introduced the Accountability in Foreign Animal Research (AFAR) Act(HR 5527) to cut funding for animal testing in foreign adversary nations including Russia. WCW says "Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay white coats in the Russian government to torture and kill cats in wasteful treadmill experiments. As White Coat Waste Project exposed, there are four Kremlin-run animal testing labs that NIH has authorized to receive our money and U.S. sanctions against Russia should include defunding them." Statement from Congresswoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) "Our tax dollars should never be sent to state-run labs in adversary nations like Russia and China that threaten our national security. My AFAR Act would prohibit tax dollars from being shipped to animal testing labs in any countries that are deemed foreign adversaries."