This article contains images that some readers might find disturbing.

U.S. tax dollars have been funding ongoing experiments at the University of Iowa, where “donated” pet dogs are drugged, locked in mesh cages, and eaten alive by sand flies trapped in capsules strapped to their ears. When the sand flies “feed” on the dogs, they infect them with leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that causes fever, severe weight loss, diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding from the nose, among other symptoms in pups. Even though there are treatments for leishmaniasis, the dogs involved in the experiments have been killed and dissected after the abuse.

White Coat Waste Project

White Coat Waste Project (WCW), the nonpartisan watchdog group that broke the story, reported that the experiments have received close to $10 million in taxpayer funds from the two grants, one from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the other from the National Institute of Health’s Fogarty International Center. The NIAID grant was greenlit under the purview of former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. Both grants continue to fund the abuse even after Fauci’s retirement and are set to expire in June 2023.

The details White Coat Waste obtained about the dog-abusing experiments came from a published NIH document. However, according to WCW, further information is still being hidden from the public after the university admitted to destroying several records of the experiments. 

This isn’t the first time the NIH and NIAID used American tax dollars to needlessly torment dogs. Last April, WCW exposed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for conducting the exact same flying-eating experiments on beagles in Tunisia

White Coat Waste Project