NIH Is Funding Dog and Cat Experiments That the Federal Government Already Banned

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A federal mandate requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to eliminate all experiments on dogs and cats by 2026. That directive is official policy. And yet, the National Institutes of Health has approved more than $225 million in new grants funding the very same kind of testing — not legacy contracts from prior administrations, but fresh approvals made recently and deliberately.^1,6

$225 Million and Counting

An investigation by the White Coat Waste Project identified more than $225 million in NIH grants approved for experiments on dogs and cats — approved under an administration that publicly championed reducing animal testing.¹ These funds flow to universities and research institutions across the country, underwritten entirely by American taxpayers.

One of the most recent and documented cases involves NIH money directed to Temple University, where cats have their spines surgically severed as part of ongoing experiments.⁷ This is not an edge case. It is part of a pattern that watchdogs identified as early as December 2025, when NIH was funding new cat experiments even as it had pledged to phase them out.⁵

A Narrow Victory That Exposed a Systemic Problem

In one case, a researcher previously connected to VA dog experiments — experiments that faced scrutiny and were terminated — attempted to secure new NIH funding to continue similar work. That grant was ultimately blocked, but only after sustained public pressure from outside advocates. No internal safeguard caught it.² The outcome was the right one. The process that produced it was not.

Congress Has Taken Notice

The disconnect between federal policy and NIH grant activity has drawn a legislative response. The Companion Animal Protection Against Cruel Testing Act, introduced in the House in September 2026 by Representative Nicholas Langworthy, would prohibit federal funding for invasive experiments on dogs and cats.⁴ Meanwhile, the VA's mandate to end dog experiments carries bipartisan support — which makes NIH's continued funding of equivalent research harder to explain with each new grant approval.³

The Animals, the Money, the Contradiction

Dogs and cats are the animals that live in American homes. The federal government has already determined, through the VA mandate, that invasive experiments on them are unnecessary enough to eliminate. NIH continuing to fund that research with taxpayer dollars is not a bureaucratic lag — it is an active contradiction of stated federal policy.

The NIH Director has the authority to act. Newly approved grants can be frozen. They can be rescinded. The VA mandate provides both the precedent and the rationale.

Sign the petition now and demand that the NIH Director immediately freeze and rescind newly approved grants funding dog and cat experiments — in direct alignment with the federal mandate already on the books.