NIH Pays Seven Institutions to Torment Animals in Gruesome Experiments: Take Action

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PETA has found that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) continues to dole out millions for experimenters to torment animals in cruel and pointless tests, despite the agency’s recent and laudable move to prioritize state-of-the-art, non-animal research methods.

PETA obtained this disturbing photo of a monkey at Wake Forest who was locked in a restraint chair that was too low for her to sit on, so experimenters left her dangling by her neck and underarms.

PETA found more than $5.5 million in grants that the NIH gave to seven institutions this year for a variety of gruesome and worthless tests on animals. The money bankrolls experimenters who addict monkeys to cocaine, simulate menopause in macaques, force vision-distorting helmets on newborn monkeys, inflict nerve damage in dogs, and other horrors.

Wake Forest University—$474,347

NIH gave repeat customer Michael A. Nader, an experimenter who has absorbed $30 million in NIH money since 1998, close to half a million dollars to addict monkeys to cocaine and nicotine, forcing them to choose between the drugs and food.

Michigan State University —$547,003

Experimenter Asgerally T. Fazleabas, another repeat NIH customer, has received more than $29 million to induce painful endometriosis in baboons and mice, neither of whom naturally experience it. Fazleabas forces baboons to undergo laparoscopy, biopsies, as well as blood and tissue collection. Part of this grant allows Fazleabas to cut off part of a mouse’s uterus and sew it to the inside of their abdomen.

University of Maryland, Baltimore—$548,544

This money backs a project that has already taken $3 million from NIH, and purports to study human menopause by ripping out the ovaries of rhesus macaques and then inducing simulated ‘hot flashes’ by pumping the monkeys with niacin (vitamin B3), estrogen, or an experimental drug.

University of Houston—$740,658

This money adds to the $4 million this project has received since 2016. In it, newborn monkeys are reared wearing helmets that plunge them into darkness and distort their vision. As they grow, the experimenters subject the babies to multiple invasive surgeries, implanting a post to their skulls, inserting electrodes into their brains, and affixing coils directly onto the outer white surface of the animals’ eyes.

University of Georgia—$1,441,664

This money adds to the $6 million NIH has already given for experiments on dogs and rats. Experimenters force a genetically engineered probiotic into rodents and dogs who are supposed to “model” Alzheimer's disease, a disease that neither dogs nor rodents suffer from.

Washington University—$632,703

Experimenters used this money to cut into dogs’ necks, deliberately paralyzed part of their voice boxes, subjected them to months of invasive tests, and then killed them to dissect their throat tissues.

Colorado Research Partners, LLC—$1,151,963

This money was used to force-feed dogs for weeks at a time an experimental drugs supposedly aimed at treating alcohol use disorder. Experimenters drew their blood repeatedly, and then killed them to dissect their organs for signs of toxicity.

What You Can Do

PETA has already urged NIH to yank its funding for these pointless experiments and funnel the money into superior, non-animal methods. Please join us by adding your voice to ours below.

After you take action, you’ll see an easy way to share this information. Please ask five friends or relatives to support this campaign!

Jon
Lorsch, PhD
Extramural Research NIH

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