NIAID's Funding of Dog Experiments

Submission 31,369

Content Warning: The following entry contains graphic material that some viewers may find disturbing.

Overview

NIAID's Funding of Dog Experiments refers to a controversy surrounding funding allocated by the alleged Anthony Fauci-led National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases into a series of research experiments conducted on beagles, some of which included subjecting live dogs to being fed on by sand flies, infesting dogs with ticks and the removal of their vocal cords. First reported in July 2021, the news became a viral subject of discussions and meme references in October after additional reports were released.

Background

On July 30th, 2021, animal rights advocacy group White Coat Waste Project^[1] published a report titled "Fauci Spent $424K on Beagle Experiments, Dogs Bitten to Death by Flies." The report claimed that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a Dr. Anthony Fauci-led division of the National Institute of Health (NIH), approved the use of $424,000 of taxpayer money by the University of Georgia to commission a study in which 28 beagles were given an experimental vaccine and then "infested with flies that carry a disease-causing parasite that affects humans." After the conclusion of the experiment, the dogs were euthanized. The report claimed that the experiment was unnecessary due to the drug having been extensively tested on other animals such as mice, Mongolian gerbils and rhesus macaques.

In early August 2021, the experiment and the allocation of funds by NIAID became subjects of scrutiny online, with several news outlets reporting on the findings. On August 6th, 2021, Newsweek^[2] published an article about the report in which Greg Trevor, a representative of the University of Georgia by which the experiments were conducted, reported that the research was conducted for the development of a potential vaccine that would protect against a disease affecting 120 million people, also stating the "research needed to be conducted on a dog model." Trevor also confirmed that due to the disease currently having no cure, the dogs used in the trial would have to be euthanized.

Developments

Fact-Checking

On August 18th, 2021, fact-checking website Snopes^[3] posted a report about the news, assigning it a "mixture" rating, meaning that both correct and false information was being reported. The website confirmed that the amount of $424,555 for research conducted at the University of George to test the potential lymphatic filariasis was allocated by the National Institute of Health. The site could not confirm nor deny that Fauci personally approved the funding. No evidence that the dogs were subject to biting, let alone bitten to death, was discovered.

Second and Further Reports

On August 31st, 2021, White Coat Waste Project published^[4] another report titled "Fauci Funded Beagle Torture Overseas, Too." According to the report, NIAID provided part of a $375,800 grant to a research facility in Tunisia where beagles were drugged, with their heads locked in mesh cages filled with sand flies, with the flies allowed to feed on the sedated dogs (image shown below, left). The experiment^[14] was meant to identify the preference of sand flies carrying the Leishmania infantum parasite between dogs infected with the parasite and healthy dogs, with 220 sand flies released into the cage containing two dogs. Another experiment was conducted in the field, with dogs locked in cages outdoors for a period of 12 hours with free access to water (image shown below, right).

On October 5th, White Coat Paint Project published the third report,^[5] writing that NIAID funded a $1.68 million research at SRI International research institute at California to conduct a series of tests in which 44 beagle puppies were injected or force-fed with an experimental drug for several weeks before being killed and dissected (image shown below, left). During the experiments, cordectomy (removal of vocal cords), or debarking, was performed on the dogs (image shown below, right).

On October 12th and 29th, White Coat Paint Project reported on two additional research experiments on beagles funded by NIAID,^[6]^[7] first involving toxicity tests on the animals, who were debarked. The fifth experiment involved injecting with a variant of a tick-transmitted bacteria and then subjecting them to a tick infestation. In both experiments, the test animals were killed.

Also on October 12th, 2021, WhiteCoatWaste published a video^[8] about the experiments, titling the controversy "#BeagleGate" (shown below).

Online Reactions

Prior to the third and fourth reports published by White Coat Paint Project in October 2021, the findings did not receive significant online attention, although a number of media outlets reported on them.

On October 23rd, 2021, U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Mace tweeted^[9] that she sent a letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci regarding experiments on dogs (shown below), signed by 23 Democratic and Republican Congress members.

Following the tweet, the findings received major attention on social media, becoming a subject of discussions on Twitter and other online platforms. For example, on October 24th, 2021, Twitter^[10] user @KamVTV posted a tweet that received over 1,900 retweets and 9,300 likes in one week (shown below, left). On October 25th, U.S. Senator Rand Paul tweeted^[11] about the experiments, with the tweet gaining over 4,100 retweets and 9,200 likes (shown below, right).

Additionally, in late October 2021, the findings became a popular subject of references in memes on Twitter, iFunny and other platforms. For example, on October 24th, 2021, iFunny^[12] user DogBoiler posted a meme that received over 1,300 smiles in one week (shown below, left). On October 26th, iFunny^[13] user Bucketson posted a meme that gained over 830 smiles in six days (shown below, center).