The Trump administration's National Institutes of Health announced over the weekend that it had shut down the notorious government research labs that were used to conduct brutal and deadly experiments on dogs.

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya told Fox News on Saturday that the agency had closed the last of its in-house beagle laboratories.

'Mr. Fauci's evil lab has FINALLY been shut down.'

Bhattacharya explained that changing the existing culture within the NIH has been difficult.

"I'll do some policy change, and people try to find the worst possible spin for it," he stated. "I put out a policy to make sure that when we have animals in research, that we look at alternatives."

"It's very easy to cure Alzheimer's in mice, but those things don't transfer to humans," Bhattacharya continued. "So we put forward policy to replace animals in research with other technological advances — AI and other tools — that actually translate better to human health."

"We got rid of all the beagle experiments on the NIH campus," he declared.

Bhattacharya addressed the public's lack of trust in the NIH, noting that he hopes to reverse this sentiment under President Donald Trump.

The White Coat Waste Project celebrated the NIH's move to shut down the last and largest in-house dog lab, where more than 2,000 beagles died from "brutal septic shock experiments."

Under former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, the NIH likely spent "millions of tax dollars" forcing pneumonia-causing bacteria into dogs' lungs. WCW stated that the bacteria caused the beagles to bleed out and forced them into septic shock.

WCW president and founder Anthony Bellotti stated, "Taxpayers and pet owners shouldn't be forced to pay for the NIH's beagle abuse."

"We applaud the president for cutting this wasteful NIH spending and will keep fighting until we defund all dog labs at home and abroad. The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!" Bellotti added.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals also praised the Trump administration's move.

PETA director of science advancement and outreach Dr. Emily Trunell said, "After more than a decade of agitation, tens of thousands of emails to NIH officials from PETA supporters, and a 2021 landmark lawsuit, PETA welcomes the long-overdue news that NIH is canceling at least one of the appalling sepsis experiments that inflicted prolonged suffering on animals in federal and federally funded laboratories."

Bhattacharya told Fox News that PETA thanked him for eliminating the experiments.

He stated, "Normally, I think NIH directors tend to get physical threats, but they sent me flowers."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) reacted to the Bhattacharya's announcement.

"You paid over $2 million so Fauci could inject beagle puppies with cocaine. Real science, they said. For years I've called out this lunacy. Grateful to [Trump], [Bhattacharya], and [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] for bringing a shred of sanity back to government spending," Paul stated.

He called the shutdown "one of the best things to come out of DOGE."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also praised the end of the experimentations.

"Mr. Fauci's evil lab has FINALLY been shut down," she wrote in a post on social media. "Beagles & dog owners across America are celebrating the END of this cruelty."

Greene shared a video with one of the beagles rescued from the dog labs.

"What kind of person would support these terrible experiments??" Greene asked.

WCW stated that “it is 100% confirmed that Fauci’s NIH division funded” the experiments.

When pressed in 2021 about the NIAID’s decision to approve the NIH’s grant funding of the experiments, the agency downplayed Fauci’s role.

“The decision whether to fund a research grant application to NIAID is made through a multi-step peer-review process,” the NIAID told FactCheck.org. “Final funding decisions are made on a group of a few thousand grant applications at a time based on the advice of the Advisory Council and NIAID staff and concurrence by Dr. Fauci. Except in very limited circumstances, Dr. Fauci does not approve funding for grant applications on an individual basis. These limited circumstances did not apply to the research recently highlighted by the White Coat Waste Project.”

The NIAID and the NIH denied funding a study in Tunisia that placed sedated beagles’ heads in cages to allow diseased sand flies to bite them.

“All animals used in NIH-funded research are protected by laws, regulations, and policies to ensure the smallest possible number of subjects and the greatest commitment to their welfare,” the NIAID previously told PolitiFact.

In October 2021, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) sent a letter to Fauci demanding answers about some of the beagle experiments, noting that the “NIAID spent $1.68 million in taxpayer funds on drug tests involving 44 beagle puppies.”

“The dogs were all between six and eight months old. The commissioned tests involved injecting and force-feeding the puppies an experimental drug for several weeks, before killing and dissecting them,” she wrote.

Mace stated in December 2021 that Fauci had not responded to her letter.

During a June 2024 House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing, Greene questioned Fauci about the beagle experiments.

“You did sign off on these so-called scientific experiments, and as a dog lover, I want to tell you this is disgusting and evil what you signed off on. And these experiments that happened to beagles, paid for by the American taxpayer, and I want you to know Americans don’t pay their taxes for animals to be tortured like this,” Greene told Fauci.

“What do dogs have to do with anything that we’re talking about today?” Fauci responded.

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