But Lacreuse kept most of the money anyway.
PETA is demanding that taxpayers get a refund.
Bait and Switch
The original design of the experiment involved blasting up to a dozen monkeys with sounds as loud as a lawn mower to prevent them from sleeping for up to 24 nights—a scientifically flawed scheme with no relevance to human health.
But records obtained by PETA show that, ultimately, only six monkeys were used and the pointless test ended after just one night of torment.
It was one expensive night for taxpayers, though.
Lacreuse somehow still burned through hundreds of thousands of tax dollars. She had accepted $438,625 from NIH but failed to complete any of the goals listed in her proposal. Despite this, she returned only $98,660, or about 22%, of the cash taxpayers gave her.
Balancing the Books
PETA is now asking three government agencies—the National Institute on Aging, the Center for Scientific Review, and the Office of Research Integrity—to investigate Lacreuse for misuse of funding and research misconduct, to force her to return the remaining $340,000 of the tax money, and to bar her from receiving any more in the future.
Please join us by taking action to urge Richard Hodes, the director of the National Institute on Aging, to demand this money back from Lacreuse and to ban her from receiving additional funds.
After you take action, you’ll see an easy way to share this information. Please ask five friends or relatives to support this campaign!