Some Recent NIH-Funded Experiments on Animals Conducted in Foreign Laboratories

The Cease Animal Research Grants Overseas (CARGO) Act (HR 4757) would save millions of taxpayer dollars and spare countless animals suffering and death in worthless experiments conducted in foreign laboratories. These are details about just a few experiments at overseas institutions recently funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Institution conducting experiment (country), funding agency, and award	Grant or published paper	What experimenters do/did to animals
Kinoxis Therapeutics (Australia), National Institute on Drug Abuse 2023: $2,149,117	Advancing KNX100 for the treatment of opioid withdrawal: preclinical efficacy and toxicology, and a phase 1 clinical program. [Grant]	Experimenters addict dogs to opioids.
University of Prince Edward Island (Canada), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 2023: $138,116	Early-life seizures modify behavioral response to ultrasonic vocalization playback in adult rats. Epilepsy Behav. 2022	Experimenters injected acid into the brains of baby rats to induce seizures.
University of Calgary (Canada), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2023: $602,472	Utility of hybrid transferrin binding protein antigens for protection against pathogenic neisseria species. Front Immunol. 2019	Experimenters infected 48 female mice with gonorrhea and 32 male mice with bacterium that cause meningitis.
University of Melbourne (Australia), National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases 2023: $321,387	Sex differences in c‐Fos and EGR‐1/Zif268 activity maps of rat sacral spinal cord following cystometry‐induced micturition. J. Comp. Neurol. 2021	Experimenters surgically implanted catheters in the bladders of 24 rats, then infused saline solution into the bladders to force the animals to urinate constantly.
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (Australia), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2023: $146,098	Shining a light on bat cellular immunity following virus infection. [Grant]	Experimenters infect bats with a highly harmful virus.
University of Sydney (Australia), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2022: $2,453,560	Advancing vaccine adjuvant research for tuberculosis (Avart-t). [Grant]	Experimenters infect monkeys with tuberculosis.
Newcastle University (U.K.), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 2023: $457,675	Locating the neural substrates for the flexor synergy after stroke. [Grant]	Experimenters surgically implant electrodes in monkeys’ arms and then damage their brains to strokes.
McGill University (Canada), National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders 2023: $492,583	Functional analysis of injectable substance treatment on surgically injured rabbit vocal folds. J. Voice. 2021	Experimenters cut the vocal cords of 12 rabbits and inserted a spatula “several times to exacerbate inflammation and scarring to ensure adequate injury.”
Karolinska Institute (Sweden), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 2023: $272,523	Changes in operation of postural networks in rabbits with postural functions recovered after lateral hemisection of the spinal cord. J. Physiol. 2023	Experimenters surgically implanted electrodes in eight rabbits’ legs, then cut their spinal cords. Then, experimenters cut the cerebrums from some rabbits’ brains, fixed the rabbits to a platform by their heads and vertebral columns, and tilted the platform to observe the rabbits’ muscle response.
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (Perú), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2023: $134,720	Porcine model of neurocysticercosis by intracarotid injection of Taenia solium oncospheres: Dose assessment, infection outcomes and serological responses. PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis. 2022	Experimenters surgically implanted a catheter in the carotid arteries of 31 piglets so they could insert up to 10,000 tapeworm embryos. “Two pigs were euthanized … due to gastric torsion and severe pneumonia.” The remaining piglets were killed five months after the surgery.
University College London, (U.K.), NIH Office of the Director 2021: $853,638	Simplifying the hardware requirements for fast neural EIT of peripheral nerves. Physiological Measurement. 2022 Fascicle localisation within peripheral nerves through evoked activity recordings: A comparison between electrical impedance tomography and multi-electrode arrays. J. Neurosci. Methods. 2021 Optimization of the electrode drive pattern for imaging fascicular compound action potentials in peripheral nerve with fast neural Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT). Physiol. Meas. 2019	Experimenters cut rats open, dissected their sciatic nerve, implanted electrodes, and killed the animals.
Kenyatta University (Kenya), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2023: $156,736	Characterisation of drug resistance in field-collected schistosomes. [Grant]	Experimenters infect hamsters with a parasite that causes the devastating disease schistosomiasis, whose symptoms include fever, chills, and muscle aches.
University of Strasbourg (France), National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism 2023: $255,960	The GPR88 agonist RTI‐13951‐33 reduces alcohol drinking and seeking in mice. Addict. Biol. 2022	Experimenters addicted mice to morphine and alcohol.
McGill University (Canada), National Institute on Drug Abuse 2023: $258,140	Amphetamine disrupts dopamine axon growth in adolescence by a sex-specific mechanism in mice. Nat. Commun. 2023	Experimenters gave young mice “recreational-like” and “Adderall-like” doses of amphetamines, injected viruses into their brains, and decapitated them weeks later.
University of Helsinki (Finland), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 2021: $422,943	Capturing large-scale locus coeruleus single neuron activity in behaving rats with nanoelectronic threads (NETs), an ultra-flexible multi-electrode probe. [Grant]	Experimenters restrain fully awake rats, implant more than 500 electrodes in their brains, and force the animals to live like this for months.
C4X Discovery Holdings PLC (U.K.), National Institute on Drug Abuse 2018: $476,025	Preclinical development of a selective Orexin-1 receptor antagonist for treatment of cocaine addiction. [Grant]	Experimenters addict rats to cocaine.
University of British Columbia(Canada), National Eye Institute 2017: $267,961	Localization and functional characterization of the p.Asn965Ser (N965S) ABCA4 variant in mice reveal pathogenic mechanisms underlying Stargardt macular degeneration. Hum. Mol. Genet. 2018	Experimenters removed the eyes of baby mice.
University Health Network (Canada), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 2017: $846,905	Plasmin-resistant PSD-95 inhibitors resolve effect-modifying drug-drug interactions between alteplase and nerinetide in acute stroke. Sci. Transl. Med. 2021	Experimenters caused strokes in rats and monkeys. Some animals died within 18 to 24 hours while others hemorrhaged between the brain and brain tissue.
Institut Pasteur de Tunis (Tunisia), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2017: 112,335	Impact of zooprophylaxis on zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis transmission. [Grant]	Experimenters use rabbits as bait for sandflies.
University of Calgary (Canada), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development 2020: $53,973	An animal model for identifying regulatory sequences of the human SHOX gene. [Grant]	Experimenters manipulate cats’ genes to create leg deformities.
Fondation Voir et Entendre (France), National Eye Institute 2019: $214,941	Inducible nonhuman primate models of retinal degeneration for testing end-stage therapies. Sci. Adv. 2023	Experimenters caused the pupils of mice and monkeys to become dilated and forced the animals to keep their eyes open while injecting a “viral vector solution” into their eyes “to create a bleb.” Other mice and monkeys’ pupils were also dilated, and they were forced to keep their eyes open for hours while being directly exposed to light. Experimenters also cut open the eyes of rats and monkeys, detached their retinas, and implanted a patch in their eyes. Rats used to test a patch material experienced “massive physical damage and inflammation in the surgery location and surrounding areas.” Finally, the experimenters removed all the animals’ eyes.
Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research (South Africa), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2016: $171,641	Integrin a4b7 as a predictor of HIV acquisition and pathogenesis. [Grant]	Experimenters infect monkeys with simian immunodeficiency virus—an illness in monkeys that’s not the same as HIV.
Universitätsklinikum Erlangen (Germany), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2019: $178,041	Global panel of non-human primate challenge viruses for standardized assessment of in vivo efficacy of HIV-1 Env antibodies. [Grant]	Experimenters infect monkeys with simian immunodeficiency virus and other viruses.
Vaxine Pty Ltd (Australia), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2020: $3,532,876	Advanced development of vaccine candidates for biodefense and emerging infectious diseases. [Grant]	Experimenters inject monkeys with influenza vaccines.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (Canada), National Institute of Mental Health 2017: $154,967	Endocannabinoid modulating drugs improve anxiety but not the expression of conditioned fear in a rodent model of post-traumatic stress disorder. Neuropharmacology. 2020 Prefrontal cortex deep brain stimulation improves fear and anxiety-like behavior and reduces basolateral amygdala activity in a preclinical model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2018	Experimenters electroshocked rats to induce “fear and anxiety,” drilled holes in their skulls, and implanted electrodes in their brains. Finally, they killed the animals.
McMaster University (Canada), National Institute of Mental Health 2019: $633,250	Transcriptional markers of excitation-inhibition balance in germ-free mice show region-specific dysregulation and rescue after bacterial colonization. J. Psychiatr. Res. 2021	Experimenters force-fed human feces to mice, then killed them and removed their brains.
Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation (Canada), National Institute of General Medical Sciences 2023: $325,999 National Institute on Aging 2023: $332,452	Subcutaneous white adipose tissue independently regulates burn-induced hypermetabolism via immune-adipose crosstalk. Cell. Rep. 2024	Experimenters burned mice over 20–30% of their bodies, cut open their stomachs to extract fat tissue, and transplanted the tissue into “recipient mice.” Three weeks later, the mice were killed.
University of Calgary (Canada), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 2023: $270,000	Transmission of cervid prions to humanized mice demonstrates the zoonotic potential of CWD. Acta. Neuropathol. 2022	Experimenters injected brain or spinal cord tissue from a deer who died of chronic wasting disease (CWD) into the brains of female mice. Then, experimenters infected voles with feces and brain tissue obtained from the infected mice. Experimenters left the mice and voles to reach the “terminal stage of disease,” in which they experienced involuntary muscle twitching or jerking, “rigid tail, rough coat, gait abnormalities, ataxia [loss of muscle control], kyphosis [hunched back], and cycles of weight loss and gain.” Two of the mice were found dead. According to the grant submitted by the experimenters to NIH, they’re planning to infect monkeys, too.
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), National Institute on Aging 2020: $153,231	Susceptibility to acute cognitive dysfunction in aged mice is underpinned by reduced white matter integrity and microgliosis. Commun. Biol. 2024	Experimenters infected mice with bacterial endotoxin to make them sick, forced them to perform cognitive tests, and killed them.
Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine (St. Kitts, West Indies), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2023: $53,676	Susceptibility of African green monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus) to Rickettsia felis, the agent of flea-borne spotted fever. [Grant]	Experimenters infect monkeys with the bacteria that causes typhus, whose symptoms include fever, muscle and joint pain, rash, headache, and fatigue.
Inserm Strasbourg (France), National Institute on Drug Abuse 2023: $270,000	Habenular neurons expressing mu opioid receptors promote negative affect in a projection-specific manner. Biol. Psychiatry. 2023	Experimenters cut open the skulls of mice, injected them with a virus, and implanted an optical cord in their brains. “From a total of 108, 43 mice were excluded from analysis due to incorrect virus injection or cannula placement.” Experimenters then subjected the mice to “behavioral testing” that included being suspended by their tails for six minutes. Then, the experimenters exposed the mice to light for three minutes and killed them.
Pluri Inc. (formerly known as Pluristem Therapeutics) (Israel), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2023: $1,445,145	Development of PLX-R18 cell therapy as a countermeasure for hematopoietic acute radiation syndrome. [Grant]	Experimenters subject mice and monkeys to whole-body radiation, which can cause anorexia, severe nausea, vomiting, cramps, and diarrhea as well as result in death due to infection and hemorrhage.
Universidad de Concepción (Chile), National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism 2021: $166,212	Overexpression of wild type glycine alpha 1 subunit rescues ethanol sensitivity in accumbal receptors and reduces binge drinking in mice. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2023	Experimenters forced mice to drink alcohol, injected viral substances into their brains, and killed them.
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (Argentina), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 2024: $133,400	CD39 expression by regulatory T cells drives CD8+ T cell suppression during experimental Trypanosoma cruzi infection. 2023 [Preprint]	Experimenters infected mice with the parasite that causes Chagas disease, injected diphtheria toxin into their abdomens, killed them, and removed their spleens and livers.