The National Institutes of Health has not stopped violating a federal spending law on government animal research after an audit earlier this year found systemic transparency failures by the agency.
Taxpayer watchdog White Coat Waste Project plans to file a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday requesting an investigation into widespread violations of the Stevens Amendment by all seven taxpayer-funded National Primate Research Centers, which confine over 22,000 primates.
The complaint, obtained by the Washington Examiner, outlines violations in relation to primate experiments funded by $118 million worth of National Institutes of Health grants.
The Stevens Amendment, a long-standing federal spending transparency law, requires press releases or statements describing taxpayer-funded projects under HHS to include the percentage and dollar amount of federal funding being allocated.
However, all seven of the NIH’s National Primate Research Centers published press releases in 2018 and 2019 on primate testing that failed to meet those requirements, according to the complaint. Those described projects that involved:
- Monkeys subjected to surgically-induced heart attacks at Washington National Primate Center, University of Washington.
- Monkeys addicted to alcohol at Oregon National Primate Research Center, Oregon Health and Science University.
- Monkeys exposed to biological weapons at Tulane National Primate Research Center, Tulane University.
- Monkeys subjected to crippling brain damage at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University.
- Monkeys intentionally threatened by humans to induce fear and anxiety at California National Primate Research Center, University of California- Davis.
- Monkeys subjected to psychological experiments at Southwest National Primate Research Center, Texas Biomedical Research Institute.
- Monkeys’ skulls drilled into and injected with the ADHD drug Ritalin at Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin- Madison.
Footage from Yerkes National Primate Research Center shows caged monkeys used for experiments that included destroying areas of their brains with toxins, causing them to lose control of their limbs, mouths, and other body parts. The primates also had head-restraining devices implanted into their skulls and electrodes inserted into their brains that were visible as well.
The experiments, which were aimed at finding methods of controlling motor symptoms of advanced Parkinson’s disease, cost taxpayers nearly $14 million in recent years, a price tag the NIH failed to include in its press releases highlighting the tests despite a Government Accountability Office recommendation that it do so.
The latest spending transparency violations come after the White Coat Waste Project found repeated Stevens Amendment violations by NIH grant-receiving institutions performing animal experiments in 2016. Out of 100 press releases that year on taxpayer-funded projects worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars, none were in compliance with the amendment.
Earlier this year, the GAO confirmed the taxpayer watchdog’s report and called on HHS to enforce the law. In response, the department pledged to “direct all operating divisions to design a process for implementing and monitoring the Stevens Amendment,” but the NIH and its grantees have failed to correct the pattern.
To combat the problem, a group of lawmakers led by Sen. Joni Ernst worked together on legislation to improve spending transparency, introducing the COST Act, which would “prohibit money from going to projects that don’t have a price tag” by letting the White House dock grant money until researchers comply with disclosure laws, according to the Iowa Republican.
“Iowans have had enough of this monkey business with the federal government hiding how taxpayer money is being spent,” Ernst told the Washington Examiner. “Taxpayers need to decide for themselves if the price is right, and the only way they can do that is if they know how much it costs.”
White Coat Waste Project backs Ernst’s bill, arguing that “even more” taxpayers would oppose government animal testing “if they knew that Uncle Sam was squandering hundreds of millions of dollars to cripple monkeys.”
“Taxpayers have a right to know how our money is being spent, and if institutions are going to blatantly violate basic spending transparency laws, they don’t deserve the money in the first place,” Anthony Bellotti, the president and founder of the White Coat Waste Project, told the Washington Examiner.
Several federal agencies have come under fire lately for conducting animal research opposed by most taxpayers on their dime. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration announced an end to its nicotine experiments on monkeys and sent dozens of the animals used to a sanctuary after backlash ensued when the secret tests were exposed.
