Congress has launched an investigation after reports emerged that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) spent millions of taxpayer dollars on experiments in which beagle puppies were injected with cocaine.
NIDA is a federal scientific research institute under the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The non-profit watchdog organization White Coat Waste Project reported that it found via a Freedom of Information Act request that “seven 6-month-old beagle puppies were trained to wear a jacket” which “served a cruel purpose: to inject the animal wearing it with drugs.” Puppies were then dosed with cocaine repeatedly “for months” with what the report described as an “ ‘experimental compound,’ to see how the two drugs interacted.”
Researchers either killed the “coke hounds” after the experiment or shipped them away to be used for other experiments, the report said.
The White Coat Waste Project's report noted that one experiment, which ran from September 2020 to September 2021 (with a report due May 2022), "was filmed, so experimenters could see if the puppies had any 'adverse reactions' to the drugs. Prior to being drugged, the dogs were also forced to undergo surgery, where they were implanted with a 'telemetry unit' to monitor their vital signs throughout the experiment."
A second experiment, which ran from March 2020 until March 2021, "used special jackets to inject beagles with cocaine. Six puppies were used in these experiments," Why do the same experiment twice? Why even do it once? We don’t know — but what we do know is that you’re footing the bill. These two experiments cost taxpayers over $2.3 million dollars," the report said.
A group of Congress members has sent a letter to Nora D. Volkow, director of NIDA, informing her of their concerns.
“The documents state that the supposed purpose of these cocaine experiments on puppies was to generate a report that 'may be submitted by NIDA to the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration].' However, the FDA itself has recently indicated that it 'does not mandate that human drugs be studied in dogs,' ” the Congress members wrote.
“We are concerned that NIDA is spending tax dollars on dog testing that is cruel, costly, outdated and that the FDA has claimed is unnecessary,” the Congress members wrote.
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