Washington, DC – Today Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-NV), a member of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, introduced bipartisan legislation with Congressman Troy Nehls (R-TX) to stop animal abuse in scientific experiments funded by taxpayer dollars in foreign laboratories.
The Cease Animal Research Grants Overseas (CARGO) Act of 2023 would prohibit the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from awarding any financial support to an activity or program that uses live animals in research unless that research occurs in the United States, to ensure regular inspections and prompt reporting of violations of animal welfare. A recent report showed that despite its mandate to verify whether foreign facilities that receive grants comply with federal practices, the NIH routinely failed to do so, causing undue harm to countless animals.
“Too many NIH programs overseas either fail to hold up under intensive scrutiny or are exempt from that oversight altogether, resulting in the abuse of animals through experiments funded by taxpayer dollars,” said Rep. Titus. “By onshoring these experiments and instituting more stringent regulations of the NIH’s experimental contractors, we can stop funding cruelty to innocent animals and restore integrity to this critical component of our national scientific research.”
“From 2011 to 2021, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shelled out a staggering $2.2 billion in taxpayer money to foreign organizations, with a shocking 90% of these funds never audited by NIH. That is unacceptable,” said Rep. Nehls. “To make matters worse, NIH does not inspect the laboratories it funds. They simply shell out billions of dollars to organizations that could be torturing animals or wasting funds.
“We’re thankful for Representatives Titus’ and Nehls’ leadership and compassion. The CARGO Act would prevent misery and death for animals in dreadful conditions at foreign laboratories funded by American taxpayers,” said People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo.
In 2021, Rep. Titus joined her colleagues in sending a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the lead federal agency for taxpayer transparency, requesting a study of the funding directed to foreign animal research through NIH. In response, a GAO report published this year laid bare how foreign labs failed to meet the minimum compliance standards in live animal research, all while raking in billions of dollars.
Between fiscal years 2011 and 2021 the NIH gave approximately $2.2 billion to 200 foreign organizations to fund 1,357 grants and contracts involving experiments on animals. Those funds went to 45 countries, including Brazil, China, Colombia, and Russia, supporting the work of foreign labs without verifying that the claims in awardees’ grant applications and progress reports are true.
Rep. Titus has previously been critical of the NIH’s live animal testing and led her colleagues in demanding accountability in their testing facilities. After the NIH awarded a grant to the Washington National Primate Research Center despite their documented history of abuse, Rep. Titus raised serious concerns over the agency’s continued support for cruel experiments on monkeys with little benefit to human medicine. In September 2022, she sent a letter to the Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) asking him to respond to concerns about the use of taxpayer dollars to fund a colony of dogs who suffer from bleeding disorders.
Rep. Titus has also confronted other federal agencies, including the VA, that allow cruel and outdated animal tests. She successfully secured the release of thousands of beagles from a facility in Virginia monitored under the Department of Agriculture in 2022, brought an end to the VA’s experiments on kittens, and championed language in the FY23 Appropriations bill to severely curtail the VA’s capacity to perform tests on other animals.
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