[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                          TRANSGENDER LAB RATS
                         AND POISONED PUPPIES:
                      OVERSIGHT OF TAXPAYER-FUNDED
                             ANIMAL CRUELTY
=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

               SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, INFORMATION
                 TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT INNOVATION

                                 OF THE

                         COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                         AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            FEBRUARY 6, 2025

                               __________

                            Serial No. 119-3

                               __________

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                       Available on: govinfo.gov
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov                             
                             
                               __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
58-804 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2025                  
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                              
                             
                             
              COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia, 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Ranking Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Ro Khanna, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Shontel Brown, Ohio
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Robert Garcia, California
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Maxwell Frost, Florida
Byron Donalds, Florida               Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Greg Casar, Texas
William Timmons, South Carolina      Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Emily Randall, Washington
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Wesley Bell, Missouri
Nick Langworthy, New York            Lateefah Simon, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri              Dave Min, California
Eli Crane, Arizona                   Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia                  Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
John McGuire, Virginia
Brandon Gill, Texas

                                 ------                                
                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
                   James Rust, Deputy Staff Director
                     Mitch Benzine, General Counsel
                Lauren Lombardo, Deputy Policy Director
             Raj Bharwani, Senior Professional Staff Member
            Duncan Wright, Senior Professional Staff Member
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Jamie Smith, Minority Staff Director

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051
                                 ------                                

 Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government 
                               Innovation

                 Nancy Mace, South Carolina, Chairwoman
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Shontel Brown, Ohio, Ranking 
Pat Fallon, Texas                        Minority Member
Eli Crane, Arizona                   Ro Khanna, California
John McGuire, Virginia               Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Vacancy                              Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

Hearing held on February 6, 2025.................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

Mr. Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President, Advocacy and Public 
    Policy,
    White Coat Waste Project
Oral Statement...................................................     5

Dr. Paul A. Locke, Professor, Department of Environmental Health 
    and 
    Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Oral Statement...................................................     6

Ms. Elizabeth Baker (Minority Witness), Director of Research 
    Policy,
    Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Oral Statement...................................................     8

Written opening statements for the witnesses are available on the 
    U.S. House of Representatives Document Repository at: 
    docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * No additional documents were entered into the record for this 
  hearing.

 
                          TRANSGENDER LAB RATS
                         AND POISONED PUPPIES:
                      OVERSIGHT OF TAXPAYER-FUNDED
                             ANIMAL CRUELTY

                              ----------                              


                       Thursday, February 6, 2025

              U.S. House of Representatives

              Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

 Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government 
                               Innovation

                                           Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:06 p.m., in 
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Nancy Mace 
[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Mace, Boebert, Burlison, Crane, 
McGuire, Brown, Khanna, and Subramanyam.
    Ms. Mace. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. The 
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and 
Government Innovation will now come to order, and welcome. Good 
afternoon.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    Good afternoon. Late last year, the White Coast Waste 
Project exposed more than $10 million in taxpayer funds that 
were spent creating transgender mice, rats, and monkeys. These 
DEI grants funded painful and deadly transgender experiments 
that forced lab animals to undergo invasive surgeries and 
hormone therapies at universities across the country. For 
example, the Biden-Harris Administration spent $2.5 million 
taxpayer--$2.5 million taxpayer dollars--to study the fertility 
of transgender mice. Let that sink in. We spent over $2 million 
studying the fertility of transgender mice. One-point-one 
million dollars was spent to find out if female rats receiving 
testosterone therapies to mimic transgender men were more 
likely to overdose on a party drug commonly used in the LGBTQ 
community to induce drug-fueled, what is ``chemsex.''
    I asked my staff what was chemsex, and I guess it is 
something called GHB, which is a date rape drug and also a drug 
that is used recreationally. So, we spent over $1 million to 
find out if female rats receiving testosterone therapy were 
more likely to overdose on a date rape drug. Like, that is what 
your taxpayer dollars were being spent on. Federal funds were 
also used to forcibly transition male monkeys to see if hormone 
therapy made them more susceptible to HIV. Now, I did not know 
this until recently, but monkeys cannot be infected with HIV, 
yet this federally funded experiment forced them to take 
hormone-altering drugs to study a virus they cannot have.
    The Biden-Harris Administration was so eager to propagate 
their radical gender ideology across all facets of American 
society that they were surgically mutating animal genitals. 
Like, taxpayer money went to that. So, my question is, were 
they castrating mice, castrating monkeys? Were they getting 
double mastectomies? The language that they used in many of 
these experiments were ``gender-affirming care,'' which I 
learned about 3 years ago what that meant. I thought that was 
maybe just some hormones or something like that, but 
apparently, gender-affirming care is actually surgical 
mutilation of genitals, and apparently, it is not just humans 
they were doing it to. We were doing it with taxpayer dollars 
to animals.
    It is well known that, because of the differences between 
animal and human biology, animal testing frequently does not 
produce results relevant for humans. In fact, 90 percent of 
novel drugs that are successful in animal tests fail in human 
clinical trials. Today's scientific questions are so complex 
that we have well surpassed the time where it is useful or 
appropriate to rely on inhumane animal experiments to answer 
them. Recently developed technological tools can more 
accurately model human biology and identify solutions that are 
more useful for human patients, but it is often the Federal 
bureaucracy that prevents these new technologies from being 
used. Instead of adequately investing in these innovative 
alternatives, the Federal Government has continued to funnel 
taxpayer dollars toward cruel animal experiments. Today, most 
of the 27 NIH institutes and centers conduct or support animal 
testing, as does the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture, the Department of Veterans Affairs, 
the Department of Defense, and countless other agencies.
    We have some Beagle puppies here with us today. Beagle 
puppies have gone through some of the worst medical 
experiments, I mean, drugging them with cocaine, having insects 
eat at them and their bodies so much until they die, drugging 
them until they die. These are God's creatures, and they are 
beautiful. And you can see them sitting in the front row today, 
so we thank the folks who are here and brought these beautiful 
Beagle puppies here today.
    In fact, the U.S. Government spends in excess of $20 
billion a year conducting experiments on animals. The White 
Coat Waste Project found in 2021 that the NIH--the National 
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a component of 
NIH, at the time ran by Dr. Fauci--spent $1.68 million force 
feeding toxic drugs to Beagle puppies between 6 and 8 months 
old before dissecting and killing them. The conversation we are 
having today is important.
    In 2022, due to public criticism lobbied about Fauci's 
NAIAD by me and other Members of Congress, another $1.8 million 
experiment to abuse Beagle puppies in various drug tests was 
canceled. So, I want to thank the work of White Coat Waste and 
everyone in the room today, others who have been on the 
forefront of this fight to end this sick and cruel and barbaric 
testing of animals today. Thanks to one of our witnesses, 
Justin Goodman of White Coat Waste, the Beagles are here. The 
Beagles are a reminder of the real costs of animal 
experimentation. So, I am looking forward to this conversation 
this afternoon regarding wasteful government spending on animal 
cruelty.
    And I also want to say before I yield to the Ranking Member 
for her opening statement, that this is a nonpartisan issue. 
Ironically, in Oversight, while we might fight a lot in public, 
we are actually very nonpartisan here. And some of the most 
nonpartisan work in Congress comes right through this 
Committee. So, I want to thank the Ranking Member. I look 
forward to working with you, and I yield to you for 5 minutes 
for your opening statement.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you, and good afternoon to our three 
witnesses. Thanks for being here.
    Chairwoman Mace, I appreciated working with you last week 
to introduce a bipartisan bill to strengthen Federal contractor 
cybersecurity. I was glad our teams were able to connect early 
into this new Congress, and on a personal note, my team found 
your staff to be very responsive and helpful.
    Ms. Mace. Likewise.
    Ms. Brown. As the Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, I 
look forward to continuing to work with you to modernize and 
secure Federal IT systems from potential cyberattacks. 
Bipartisan solutions like this are critical to protecting our 
Federal system from cyberthreats. I look forward to finding 
more common ground and delivering results for the American 
people.
    I am looking forward to having a productive discussion 
today about the scientific innovations and the need for 
additional oversight over alternatives to animal testing. Each 
year, millions of animals, including dogs, cats, and monkeys, 
are used worldwide for research, and I think it is safe to 
assume that everyone here in this room would like to see that 
number reduced. We are living in a moment where there have been 
extraordinary advancements in medical research, utilizing 
groundbreaking technology like artificial intelligence, 3D 
bioprinting, and robotics that allows us to reduce our reliance 
on animal testing. I am especially proud that much of this 
innovation is happening in my district, Ohio's 11th, home to 
world-class research universities and medical institutions. Not 
only does this offer the chance to save animals from suffering, 
these methods can actually lead to better and more accurate 
results.
    From a scientific perspective, one of the main issues with 
animal testing is that these trials often fail to produce 
results relevant to humans. In fact, 90 percent of new drugs 
that are shown to work in animal models fail in human trials. 
Dr. Locke, one of the witnesses here today, is going to explain 
this phenomenon, and he said that ``Animal biology is just too 
different from human biology. Because of this, a great deal of 
funding and time is wasted on experiments that, ultimately, do 
not translate to human trials. By modernizing our research 
methods to avoid the use of animal subjects, we can also save 
precious taxpayer dollars.''
    Thankfully, there are viable alternatives that are more 
ethical, accurate, and efficient ways to study human biology 
and disease. We now have the technology to effectively 
replicate organs in labs, allowing us to better see how the 
human body will respond to drugs and treatments. We have 
machine learning systems that can analyze large sets of health 
data to develop predictable models of patient response. We have 
the capabilities of 3D printing tissue and muscle to test 
cosmetics, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals in a highly realistic 
way. Just these few examples highlight the amazing work that 
has already been done and the important need for continued 
investment in the medical field.
    At the time, we must institute strong oversight of the 
animal testing that is still occurring to ensure that our 
Federal dollars are being used ethically and transparently and 
that harm to animals is minimized. I believe it is our moral 
responsibility to advocate for animals who cannot speak for 
themselves. Last Congress, I was proud to cosponsor the Humane 
Cosmetics Act, which addresses the use of animal testing in the 
cosmetic industry. This bill had massive bipartisan support, 
demonstrating the progress we can make in this area.
    I look forward to hearing more from our witnesses on these 
important issues, and I look forward to future hearings in the 
months to come on important topics of cybersecurity, artificial 
intelligence, and government innovation. Thank you.
    Ms. Mace. Great job. I am pleased to introduce our 
witnesses for today's hearing. Our first witness is Mr. Justin 
Goodman, Senior Vice President, Advocacy and Public Policy, at 
the White Coat Waste Project. It is also Mr. Goodman's birthday 
today, and so I would like to wish you a happy birthday and 
thank you for being here today. Our second witness is Dr. Paul 
Locke, Professor of the Department of Environmental Health and 
Engineering at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public 
Health. Our third witness is Ms. Elizabeth Baker, Director of 
Research Policy at the Physicians Committee for Responsible 
Medicine. Welcome, everyone. We are pleased to have you this 
afternoon.
    Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses, if you will 
please stand and raise your right hand.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth, so help you God?
    [A chorus of ayes.]
    Ms. Mace. Let the record show that the witnesses all 
answered in the affirmative. We appreciate you for being here 
today and look forward to your testimony. You may be seated.
    Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written 
statements, and they will appear in full in the hearing record. 
Please limit your oral statements to 5 minutes. As a reminder, 
please press the button on the microphone in front of you so 
that it is on when you speak and the members can hear you. When 
you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green. 
After 4 our minutes, the light will turn yellow, and when the 
red light comes on, your 5 minutes is up, and we would ask that 
you please wrap it up.
    I would like to recognize Mr. Goodman to please begin your 
opening statement.

                      STATEMENT OF JUSTIN GOODMAN

                         SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

                        WHITE COAT WASTE PROJECT

    Mr. Goodman. Thank you. Chairwoman Mace, Ranking Member 
Brown, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you 
for the opportunity to testify today. As the Chairwoman 
mentioned, it is my birthday, and this is the greatest gift I 
could possibly ask for. My name is Justin Goodman, and I am the 
Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at the 
nonprofit, nonpartisan government watchdog White Coat Waste 
Project. White Coat Waste has one mission: to stop taxpayers 
from being forced to pay for cruel, wasteful, inefficient, and 
dangerous animal experiments in labs around the world. Lab 
survivors Nellie, Beasley, and Oliver, sitting behind me, are 
three of the many reasons why.
    Many people do not realize that the U.S. Government is not 
only the single largest funder of animal testing in the 
country, but in the world. Uncle Sam outspends the private 
sector on animal testing 2 to 1. This is not something to be 
proud of. Over 20 years ago, the NIH budget doubled and animal 
testing skyrocketed, but, overall, people are not healthier or 
living longer. It is estimated that over $20 million a year of 
taxpayers' money is still wasted annually on ineffective and 
inhumane tests on tens of millions of puppies, kittens, and 
other animals.
    Am I being flippant when I use the word ``waste?'' 
Absolutely not. The NIH itself has said, ``Animal models fail 
to mimic disease or predict how drugs will work in humans, 
resulting in much wasted time and money,'' yet agencies 
continue to dump billions of tax dollars into animal tests, 
despite the horrible return on investment.
    Experiments we have uncovered range from the savage to the 
stupid: injecting puppies with cocaine, staging hamster fight 
clubs, putting dead turtles on treadmills. One of the reasons 
this problem has gotten so out of control is the stunning lack 
of innovation, transparency, and accountability. Agencies do 
not report, or even track, in some cases, how much money is 
being spent, how many animals are used, what is being done to 
them, where, and what taxpayers are getting out of it. We file 
hundreds of FOIA requests every year to glean just basic 
information. When we can find out how tax dollars are being 
spent, it becomes apparent why Federal agencies fight against 
disclosing details.
    For example, Senator Rand Paul's December 2024 Festivus 
Report highlighted cruel taxpayer-funded cat experiments 
exposed by my organization. In one $10 million DARPA grant, 
cats have marbles shoved up their rectums and are 
electroshocked to make them defecate in constipation 
experiments. We have also recently identified over $240 million 
in NIH grants for transgender animal experiments, including $26 
million in active funding. Some of these tests, as the 
Chairwoman mentioned, examine the effects of party drugs on 
animals injected with testosterone and how hormones used for 
human gender transitions impact the size and shape of animals' 
genitals. How does this translate to helping the average 
American?
    Shockingly, 95 percent of this funding came from Dr. 
Fauci's NIAID. Speaking of Dr. Fauci, our group is perhaps best 
known for exposing his and USAID's funding for dangerous gain-
of-function animal experiments at the Wuhan lab. We also 
uncovered his support for cruel Beagle tests around the world. 
Taxpayer-funded animal tests may have caused COVID.
    Unfortunately, the government has not learned its lesson 
from what happened in Wuhan. Today, there are still 26 animal 
labs in China, including labs controlled by the Chinese 
Communist Party and tied to the military, approved to receive 
NIH funding. This is not just a misuse of taxpayer dollars but 
presents a national security threat.
    White Coat Waste recently obtained a contract funded by the 
NIH and DOD that is paying for 300 Beagles a week to be 
restrained and injected with or force-fed experimental drugs in 
a Chinese lab. The reason they chose Beagles like Nellie, 
Oliver, and Beasley, the contract states, ``Beagle dogs are 
docile, cute, and easy to domesticate, so it has been the best 
choice,'' not because it is effective, but because it is easy.
    This issue extends beyond China. Three hundred and forty-
four animal labs in 52 foreign countries are approved currently 
to receive NIH funding. GAO audits prompted by White Coat Waste 
have found that NIH shipped billions to foreign animal labs 
with essentially no oversight, that the NIH has never visited a 
foreign animal lab in over 40 years of overseeing research, and 
that some foreign spending is not even tracked. This is how 
some spending in Wuhan went undisclosed, and no surprise, Dr. 
Fauci's division of NIH is responsible for 95 percent of the 
foreign aid. Continuing to send tax dollars to an authoritarian 
adversary's animal labs is a recipe for disaster.
    With Chairwoman Mace's leadership, we have been able to 
halt plans for wasteful and cruel testing on dogs and cats in 
other Fauci-funded labs. These tests never should have been 
approved in the first place and were only deemed unnecessary 
after we exposed them. Our campaigns and legislative work with 
the Chairwoman, Reps Boebert, Khanna, Luna, and many others 
exposed and shuttered waste, like the government's largest cat 
lab that was feeding kittens kitten meat from Chinese wet 
markets--yes, that is true; that was a cannibalism experiment--
eliminating VA testing on dogs and cats, and ending nicotine 
tests on monkeys at FDA, but there is much more work to be 
done. Taxpayers should not be forced to pay billions of dollars 
every year for outdated, cruel, and potentially dangerous 
animal experiments, especially when most people oppose them.
    We are excited to work with you, DOGE, the Administration, 
and others to continue cutting wasteful spending on animal 
experiments. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, on 
my birthday. I look forward to your questions.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I recognize Dr. Locke to please begin 
your opening statement.

                     STATEMENT OF DR. PAUL A. LOCKE

                               PROFESSOR

            JOHNS HOPKINS BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

    Mr. Locke. Chairwoman Mace, Ranking Member Brown, and 
members of the Committee and Subcommittee, thank you for 
inviting me to offer comments at today's hearing. My name is 
Paul Locke. I am a professor in the Department of Environmental 
Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of 
Public Health. I am an attorney and an environmental health 
scientist, and a substantial portion of my work has 
concentrated on the uses of nonanimal methodologies in research 
and regulatory decision-making, with an emphasis on the promise 
that these methods have for both reducing animal use and 
improving evidence-based decision-making.
    I want to state for the record that the opinions here that 
I offer are my own, and they do not necessarily reflect the 
views or positions of the Johns Hopkins University or the Johns 
Hopkins Health System.
    Today, I want to cover three major points. First, the 
scientific questions facing us increasingly call into question 
our reliance on animal models and demand that we move forward 
with more human-centric science. Second, Federal agencies must 
play a leadership role in this transition to these new human-
centric models. And third, the development and deployment of 
these models represent innovation in places where U.S. 
businesses and scientists are and must continue to be at the 
cutting edge. Let us start with a discussion about scientific 
methods and needs.
    The complex scientific challenges that we now face require 
that we move away from traditional animal models and embrace 
new technologies that do not involve animals but instead 
incorporate human biology. These technologies include small, 
engineered systems, such as organs on a chip and 
microphysiological systems, or three-dimensional groups of 
cells, such as organoids, that mimic many of the important 
functions of human organs. I would also include AI in this 
group. Now, while there is considerable enthusiasm around the 
promise of these new methodologies, unless Federal agencies and 
departments support their development and recognize their 
promise, they will never be able to reach their full potential. 
We are not going to be able to replace animals in biomedical 
research with the meagre investments that Federal agencies are 
now making.
    EPA, FDA, and NIH all have important roles to play in 
unlocking the potential that these technologies have for 
designing better drugs, protecting the environment, and 
improving health. Based on our research, there are currently 
major gaps in the frameworks needed to support new 
methodologies, and it is imperative that the Federal Government 
step forward. The Federal approach has been passive and 
reactive. What we need is for Federal agencies and departments 
to lead efforts to development, implement, and use these 
methods, and my written testimony goes into greater information 
about what Federal agencies can be doing, and I hope we will 
have some questions on that, as well.
    Finally, the U.S. must continue to lead the way in these 
technologies so that we are setting the global standards in 
these fields rather than following other nations. Regulatory 
agencies worldwide look to us for leadership, and if the U.S. 
leads in alternatives, methods, development, and validation, 
our standards will shape international regulations, assist in 
the creation of U.S. high-tech jobs, and strengthen our 
national economic growth.
    So, to summarize, scientific advancements have created 
multiple opportunities for us to develop and deploy more human-
centric techniques in toxicology and biomedical research and 
transition away from animals in biomedical research. 
Championing these nonanimal models is a win-win situation 
because we can reduce the number of animals used, as well as 
produce data that is more relevant to human health. Federal 
agencies and departments must play a central role, and they 
have already begun to do so. However, to realize the full 
potential that this transition holds, our agencies and 
departments must do more, including dedicating additional 
resources and leading in efforts to validate these innovative 
new technologies. We cannot be world leaders given the meagre 
resources that are now available. These markets are expanding 
rapidly, and several American companies are well positioned for 
success in this market space once the regulatory environment 
and framework is open for them.
    In closing, I urge the Subcommittee to work with Federal 
agencies to further develop the criteria for validation and 
acceptance of these new technologies within each department and 
in a coordinated way across multiple agencies, as well as 
dedicate additional resources to them. Doing so will allow us 
to reduce the number of animals in research, better inform 
decision-making, and advance American entrepreneurial science. 
Thank you very much.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Dr. Locke. I now recognize Ms. Baker 
to please begin your opening statement.

                      STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH BAKER

                      DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH POLICY

             PHYSICIANS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDICINE

    Ms. Baker. Chair Mace and Ranking Member Brown and Members 
of the Subcommittee, thank you so much for the opportunity to 
testify today. My name is Elizabeth Baker at the Physicians 
Committee for Responsible Medicine. I work with a team of 
scientists, physicians, lawyers, and other professionals to 
move medical research, product testing, and advanced medical 
training away from using animals. I appreciate the 
Subcommittee's attention to this critical subject.
    Ending federally funded animal experiments is long overdue. 
For generations, tax dollars have paid scientists to conduct 
acts that would shock the conscience of most Americans. Dogs, 
cats, monkeys, rabbits, pigs, and other animals are used in 
experiments that are painful, stressful, and often lethal for 
the animals that are subjected to them. Increasingly, it is 
recognized across research and testing sectors that animals are 
not good surrogates for humans. Over 85 percent of Americans 
that were recently polled agreed that animal-based research 
should be phased out. Both Congress and the Administration must 
take action to ensure that government funding and requests for 
animal experiments are stopped, and that instead, a portion of 
that funding is reinvested into more effective human-based 
approaches.
    Our first recommendation is to end Federal support for 
wasteful and ineffective animal research. Animal research does 
not translate to humans because there are insurmountable 
species differences in our anatomy, physiology, lifespan, 
disease characteristics, and more. It is known that, for new 
drugs, 9 out of 10 are going to fail in humans after they 
appeared successful in animals, and paying for those failures 
is partially why drugs can take so long, over a decade, to 
develop and cost so much to develop, over $1 billion. Worse, 
relying on animal data is partially why many human diseases 
have no treatments and even fewer have cures. Despite this 
knowledge, the Federal Government continues to promote animal 
research. The National Institutes of Health fund seven National 
Primate Research Centers that house, breed, and experiment on 
nonhuman primates with little regard to actual human 
translation.
    While there are countless examples of cruel research, 
consider this. Since 1991, the NIH has given $15 million to a 
single heart failure project where dogs are subjected to 
multiple major surgeries, they have devices that are stabbed 
into their hearts, and then they are forced to run on 
treadmills until they die or that device malfunctions. Despite 
34 years of this work and hundreds of dead dogs, there has been 
no benefit to patients.
    Agencies across the Federal Government continue to fund 
animal experiments, even when the objectives of the research 
have already been shown in humans or could be studied using 
human-based approaches, like animal experiments for human 
nutrition. Regulatory agencies continue to require animal 
testing. Congress and the administration can end these wasteful 
experiments by cutting egregious research, ensuring that 
research is not funded if these objectives can be studied 
without using animals, and ending the Federal animal testing 
requirements in regulation and policy.
    Our second recommendation is to reinvest some of these 
savings from animal research and testing toward evaluation, 
acceptance, and use of innovative and more effective human-
based approaches. Methods like organs on chips, reconstructed 
human tissues, sophisticated computer models have existed for 
some time, but they are only supported at a fraction of the 
funding that goes to the animal experiments.
    Some Federal efforts have already begun accelerating 
innovative human-based methods. The NIH has a national center, 
NICEATM, that works to evaluate and advance nonanimal 
approaches across Federal agencies through a congressionally 
mandated committee, ICCVAM. With more investment and an 
expanded purview, NICEATM can accelerate this work and even 
address the reproducibility crisis in research. A center at the 
NIH, NCATS, is already working to bridge the gap between 
medical research and product development by prioritizing 
innovative human-based approaches. Recently, the NIH adopted 
important recommendations on nonanimal approaches and launched 
the complementary program to speed development and use of these 
methods.
    Each of these are great examples of steps in the right 
direction, but the current resource investments just pale in 
comparison to the stronghold that animal experiments have held 
for decades. Greater support for these efforts will more 
quickly advance better science that leads to improved outcomes 
for people, while avoiding animal use. There has been so much 
recent attention on getting Americans healthier. If we truly 
want to make America healthy again, we have to make science 
human again.
    Thank you so much for this opportunity to testify, and I 
look forward to answering your questions.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you all for being here today. I will now 
recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Goodman, in your written, you state the White Coat 
Waste Project identified at least $10 million in NIH grants for 
transgender animal experiments. You state that 95 percent of 
the funding came from Dr. Fauci's NIAID. Why is the Federal 
Government spending taxpayer dollars to create transgender 
animals?
    Mr. Goodman. It is a great question. I----
    Ms. Mace. Your microphone.
    Mr. Goodman. Thank you. It is a great question. I mean, I 
wonder why they are making cats constipated also. It is a 
question that rings around in my head at night when I am going 
to bed, why we are funding these things. A lot of the programs 
that are funded do latch on to some type of social trend, and 
then animal experimenters use it as a money grab, as an excuse 
to get NIH tax funds. In this case, DEI grants were used to 
fund a lot of this stuff.
    Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Goodman. So, people who abuse animals find some kind of 
excuse to bring in new money, and They will switch their 
research program over to something that is trendy to bring tax 
dollars into a university. I mean, that is part of the big 
problem here is that colleges and universities are taking 25 to 
40 percent off the top of every single one of these grants for 
indirect costs that go into a slush fund that has nothing to do 
with the research, so they are willing to let experimenters do 
whatever they want to animals to keep the money flowing in.
    Ms. Mace. Some people might describe that as money 
laundering. All right. Are sex change experiments that forcibly 
transition mice, rats, and monkeys necessary for science?
    Mr. Goodman. Absolutely not.
    Ms. Mace. Why do these experiments at all--if they are not 
producing useful human-relevant research, again, do you think 
it is a money issue, follow the money?
    Mr. Goodman. Animal testing is big business.
    Ms. Mace. As you know, I have been long vocal about animal 
experiments and Federal-funded animal testing and worked with 
you to prevent Fauci's plan to waste almost $2 million in 
taxpayer dollars to maim and murder Beagle puppies, for 
example. Why was Dr. Fauci so insistent on poisoning these 
puppies, even though, as you state in your written statement, 
the FDA does not mandate that human drugs be studied on dogs?
    Mr. Goodman. So much of the problem with all of this is 
institutional inertia. It is that people just continue doing 
the same thing because that is what They have done before. 
There was a report the National Academy of Sciences put out a 
few years ago about the VA's testing on dogs that Congressman 
Khanna actually helped us----
    Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Goodman [continuing]. Get the NAS to conduct. And they 
found that most of the VA's testing on dogs was unnecessary, 
and not only that it was unnecessary, but one of the reasons 
why is that there is just circular reasoning that they use to 
defend it when they propose a new project. They say, well, we 
used dogs previously, so we are just going to use dogs again, 
and there is no one to break that cycle. There is not enough 
oversight to say, hey, maybe we do not need to do this anymore, 
maybe there is a better way to do it. It is like, if you only 
have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and that is kind 
of the problem.
    Ms. Mace. Right, and what would have happened to these 
Beagle puppies if your organization had not rescued them?
    Mr. Goodman. In the case of those experiments?
    Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Goodman. Those dogs were going to be force-fed and 
injected with massive doses of experimental drugs to poison 
them to see at what point they got sick or died, and those 
tests will have no relevance for the safety and efficacy of 
that drug in human beings.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. Dr. Locke, I had a few questions for 
you. Can the scientific challenges we face today be saved by 
relying on animal testing?
    Dr. Locke. No, not all of them.
    Ms. Mace. Can you briefly describe how new technologies can 
allow us to transition away from animal testing without 
hindering scientific research?
    Dr. Locke. Certainly. I also want to point out that in my 
written testimony, I do try to lay out a roadmap for how that 
could happen. But basically, what we need to do is we need to 
spend a lot more resources supporting these nonanimal 
technologies, such as organs on a chip and organoids, so we can 
use those to study many of the phenomena that we are now 
studying in animals.
    Ms. Mace. OK. Thank you, and, Ms. Baker, what are your 
thoughts today--reading your testimony ``for the opportunity to 
testify, that it is long overdue''--where do we go from here? 
How do we fix the problem?
    Ms. Baker. I think we fix the problem by investing in what 
is going right. First, we have got to cut a lot of this 
terrible animal research. We need to cut the National Primate 
Research Centers.
    Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
    Ms. Baker. We are funding these centers to the tune of 
hundreds of millions of dollars every year. We have got to 
stop. We have got to stop funding animal experiments outside 
the United States, as Mr. Goodman said, that have no oversight. 
If you can meet your objectives without using animals, there is 
absolutely no reason that you should, and so----
    Ms. Mace. Thank you for bringing that up, the amount of 
money, the hundreds of millions. I recently found out in the 
state of South Carolina, in my district, there is a primate 
breeding center and testing site, Alpha Genesis. They have 
made, to my understanding, over $100 million from NIH over the 
last 20 or so years. This is a boondoggle. It is a racket, and 
hundreds of millions of dollars--billions of dollars, in fact--
have been wasted on it. So, I want to thank you all for your 
testimony today. Thank you for being here. I would now like to 
recognize my colleague, Ms. Brown, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Brown. Again, thank you to our witnesses for being 
here. I think it is clear that we all agree that we do not want 
to see animals harmed and that there is work to be done to 
reduce our reliance on animals for medical and scientific 
research. So, I would like to start with you, Ms. Baker. Can 
you talk about where you think some of the current gaps, the 
oversight, are in the animal experimentation?
    Ms. Baker. Yes. I think we have some major issues with 
oversight. We do not know, really, how much spending is going 
to animal experiments. The public is largely in the dark. We 
try so hard to understand this information, and we have to come 
up with some of it on our own. It would be great if the Federal 
Government would be more transparent in this way. We do know 
that, in 2016, the NIH said that for Fiscal Year 2015, 47 
percent of extramural grants used mice. Seven-point-four 
billion dollars is what that would be in 2024. In 2021, NIH 
issued a figure that said about 8 percent of grants go to non-
clinical, nonanimal approaches. Well, non-clinical approaches 
really mean the animal tests or the alternatives, and so a ton 
of money is going into this.
    We wanted to understand for cancer; cancer is one disease 
area where it is well known that animals are just really poor 
predictors of human outcomes. We get cancer differently. It 
behaves differently in our bodies. The failure rate for cancer 
drugs is 94 percent. We have cures for cancer in mice. We do 
not in humans. And so, we wanted to look at what is the 
National Cancer Institute doing. How are they funding? What 
does their funding look like? And so, our analysis is not 
perfect because it is based on, unfortunately, just the 
publicly available information, which is not totally 
transparent, but we found that 45 percent of their grants seem 
to be animal related. And so, the NIH can really, I think, help 
by ensuring that there is transparency around this.
    Ms. Brown. I am just going to reclaim----
    Ms. Baker. There is also an oversight issue when----
    Ms. Brown [continuing]. Because I would like to get to Dr. 
Locke, too, but thank you. Dr. Locke, you talked in your 
testimony about several different technologies that you have 
worked with that are direct alternatives to animal testing. Can 
you speak to the success of these technologies and what 
Congress can do to be more supportive of the efforts to expand 
other innovative technologies in this space?
    Dr. Locke. Yes. Thank you for your question. I think there 
are at least two things that Congress can do. The first thing 
Congress can do is to really get a handle, as my colleagues 
have said, on how much money we are spending on these 
technologies. The transparency issue is severe. So, since this 
is a committee on accountability, I would say the first thing 
we need to do is we need to count. We do not have that 
information. You do not have that information.
    The second thing that needs to be done is that these 
technologies need to be what I would call validated, and by 
that, I mean they need to be shown that they are relevant and 
reliable for a particular purpose. One of my frustrations now 
is that the Federal agencies are not doing that. They seem to 
be very reactive, and they seem to want folks who are in the 
field to bring the data to them. And then they are going to 
make the decision, well, we accept this data or do not accept 
this data, and that is a really bad situation to be in. These 
folks who are developing the methods are entrepreneurs. They 
are innovators. They have to know what kind of target they are 
shooting at.
    The third thing I would say is that we really do need to 
get a handle on the animal research we are doing. Again, that 
is an area of transparency, and we need to develop metrics so 
we can figure out what part of that research is actually 
working and what part is not working. And then, as my 
colleagues have suggested, I think we should be sunsetting the 
stuff that is not working and reinvesting that in these new 
methodologies.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you very much, Dr. Locke. And as we move 
to decrease our reliance on animal experimentation, it is 
important to acknowledge that, unfortunately, there are still 
companies and organizations that still utilize animal testing. 
So, what can be done to move these places toward alternative 
models like the ones you have mentioned?
    Dr. Locke. Thank you for that question. I think there are 
several things that can be done. The first thing that we can 
do--and I have some bias here as an academic--is we can train 
our students in these new methods. We have to move away from 
animal tests and animal research as always the gold standard. 
The second thing we can do is we can energize the whole Federal 
grant system to make it much more friendly so that folks who 
want to use these alternatives can actually go out and get 
research money to study them.
    Ms. Brown. All right. Thank you, and with that, Madam 
Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I will now yield to Ms. Boebert.
    Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate your 
advocacy on this and protecting so many animals against this, 
as we have heard, savage research that has been taking place, 
not only in the United States, but all throughout the world. 
And I want to thank our witnesses today for your boldness to 
come out because it seems like any time we expose millions and 
billions, even, of dollars that are spent toward ridiculous 
research programs or just organizations themselves, we are 
lashed out at. We are called crazy and conspiracist, and I want 
to thank you so much for taking a bold step.
    I want to thank you for the White Coat Waste Project 
because this is not only saving precious Beagles' lives but 
really exposing to the American taxpayer where their money is 
going, and I think we all want to be good stewards of our tax 
money. We are responsible for those tax dollars here in 
Congress, and it is our responsibility to be stewards and 
overseers of that. So, I am grateful for DOGE to come in 
alongside of us to help expose some of this and kind of get 
those wheels turning.
    But just for the folks back home real quick, before I get 
into my questions, I want to just highlight, a million seconds 
is 11-and-a-half days. A billion seconds is 31 years and 7 
months. It is, like, this is a huge difference. When we are 
talking about billions of dollars going toward the cruelty of 
animals, it is much larger than what it sounds because it has 
been so watered down to hear that Congress is spending millions 
or billions or even trillions of dollars. God forbid if we find 
out what comes after a trillion. We will start spending that, 
too. But Mr. Goodman, since 1998, how much do you believe that 
the Federal Government has spent on animal cruelty testing?
    Mr. Goodman. Thank you for the question. As we have been 
discussing, it is tough because there is not a lot of 
transparency behind actually how much tax dollars are being 
spent. I would say we are probably looking at a trillion in 
spending by NIH since 1998, and about 47 percent of that is 
used for experiments on animals. Half a trillion dollars----
    Ms. Boebert. Wow.
    Mr. Goodman [continuing]. Could have potentially been spent 
on animal testing since 1998.
    Ms. Boebert. That is an extreme number. Thank you for that, 
and, Mr. Goodman, how much money do you think that NIAID wasted 
on unethical and useless and abusive testing? I would imagine 
it is about the same because none of this has been very useful 
or effective.
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. So, Dr. Fauci ran NIAID from 1984 to 
2022, and when he left at the end of 2022, it had a $6.5 
billion budget. Again, we do not know what percentage that was 
for animal testing but probably higher than the average across 
NIH. And I just want to make a note here that Dr. Fauci--and I 
do not have any issue with him outside of his abuse of 
animals--he was not just a paper pusher. He was personally 
involved in animal experimentation, experimenting on monkeys, 
giving them HIV-like viruses, until the day he left NIH. He was 
a lead investigator on grants that were funded by taxpayers to 
do that. And he started his career by infecting chimpanzees 
with HIV and promising we were going to have an AIDS vaccine 
back in the 1980's, which we never got because, as you 
mentioned, they do not get HIV. They do not get AIDS. They do 
not get sick. So, there has been an enormous amount of waste 
and abuse, and, unfortunately, he is gone from government, but 
his legacy at NIAID lives on.
    Ms. Boebert. Yes. Fortunately, he is gone from government, 
but that does not prevent us from holding him accountable for 
not only the wasteful spending, but the cruel tests that have 
taken place over the years, so maybe you answered my next 
question. How many of these treatments have found cures in 
humans that come from this cruel kind of testing?
    Mr. Goodman. Virtually none. We have heard the statistics 
today, and any that have come, it is out of pure dumb luck, and 
they are the exception, not the rule because animal experiments 
are a dead end. It is pure chance if something good comes out 
of it.
    Ms. Boebert. And so, I am seeing here, with NIAID, the 
budget of spending $6.5 billion in taxpayer money, it has been 
used to pay EcoHealth Alliance to import hundreds of Asian bats 
into the U.S. for new viruses in labs in Colorado run by the 
Wuhan-linked researchers. That is $6.7 for the Colorado State 
University in Fort Collins to research bats here in America. 
And we have also sent billions of taxpayer dollars to 
unaccountable labs in China and other foreign countries. 
Implanted aborted baby parts into lab animals, have you heard 
of that sort of research?
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. We did an analysis a few years ago 
showing that over 90 percent of experiments using human fetal 
tissue and involving animals were funded by Fauci's NIAID.
    Ms. Boebert. Do you know where they are getting the aborted 
human fetal tissue?
    Mr. Goodman. A lot of it is happening at colleges and 
universities that have affiliated hospitals that perform that 
procedure.
    Ms. Boebert. Madam Chair, I think we need to look into that 
as well. My time has expired. I apologize to our other 
witnesses. I did have questions for you, but I will submit 
those in writing. Thank you.
    Ms. Mace. That is wild. I would now like to recognize Mr. 
Subramanyam for 5 minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Subramanyam. Thank you. I am glad we are having this 
hearing today. I actually had the chance to talk to an animal 
care program manager at a research facility, and he said 
something really interesting. He said, the day we no longer 
need animals for research is the day we have succeeded as an 
industry. So, I think what you are finding is that even the 
people who are employed to run these programs are starting to 
realize that we would like to see a path to where we no longer 
need animals, and so I think that is really interesting.
    One of the things I would like to know, though, is how far 
away are we until the technologies can completely replace 
animals and we can still be on the cutting edge of science. I 
am an animal lover. I am a vegan, even. I very much support 
getting rid of animals in all testing, but I want to make sure 
that we also do the cutting-edge research that we need to do. I 
would ask all three, really--Ms. Baker, Dr. Locke, Mr. 
Goodman--if you could address how far away are we, and I also 
would love to know what kind of investment do we need. Does it 
have to be from the public sector? Is there private-sector 
companies going after this, getting venture funding for it, for 
instance? I would love to know what we can do and what the path 
looks like.
    Ms. Baker. Thank you for the question. There are so many 
incredible technologies that we have today that we should be 
using to be on the cutting edge. So, using animals is not 
cutting edge. Using animals is something that has been done for 
so long. The innovative approaches, they do not use animals. 
They are human-biology-based because we need to understand 
human outcomes. If we want to talk about innovation, just take 
a look at any other industry. Look at the phone industry. What 
was a phone in the 1950's versus what it is today? What was a 
car back then versus what it is today? What was science doing 
back then versus what is happening today? A lot of the 
regulatory tests that are done are the same exact tests that 
have been done since the 1950's, so if we are talking about 
really being on the cutting edge, we absolutely have to be 
embracing and supporting and investing in these approaches.
    It is not just our Federal Government. There are many 
companies that exist today that have already developed these 
approaches. I think they will do much better once we do things 
like remove requirements for testing products on animals. 
Because there still is so much favoritism in science for using 
the animal-based approaches, because people think that you have 
to do it if you want to get an NIH grant, you have to do it if 
you want to get through the FDA. And so, once those things 
really start to change, I think we will see a lot more 
investment in the government and outside.
    Mr. Subramanyam. And, Dr. Locke, the same question.
    Dr. Locke. Yes, thank you for the question. The good news 
is that, at least in one area, cosmetics testing, we are pretty 
much out of the animal testing business. If you look at other 
areas--for example, testing of environmental chemicals, drugs, 
and discovery--we are not there yet. How long is it going to 
take? I always like to say it is not a matter of if, but it is 
a matter of when, but no one has ever asked me to put a time on 
that, and I am afraid I cannot do that.
    I know what steps we need to take to get there, which are 
to really start to fund these technologies, to make sure that 
these technologies are valid, to get the Federal Government to 
really be very, very much of a leader in these. I do believe 
that we have an incredibly entrepreneurial private sector that 
is well positioned to be leaders in these in the world market. 
You are seeing all sorts of continuous funding of these from 
venture capitalists. You are seeing all sorts of use of these 
technologies in medical settings. There is a lot of 
personalized medicine that is being used, so the future is very 
bright. I think it is just really a matter of getting us on the 
right pathway to do that.
    It is not going to be something, unfortunately, I think it 
is going to happen in 5 years or 10 years, but it could happen 
in 20, 30, 40, maybe not even within my lifetime, but to be 
honest with you, I do not really care as long as we get on that 
pathway.
    Mr. Subramanyam. Mr. Goodman?
    Mr. Goodman. I think I am a little more optimistic. I mean, 
we could stop animal testing today. It is useless. It is 
misleading us. It is causing us to waste billions of dollars 
every year, decades of time and energy and very smart people. 
These are some of the smartest people in the world. You cutoff 
their funding for animal testing, they are going to figure out 
something else to do. The private sector is going to innovate. 
Stop forcing companies to test on animals. Stop doling out 
billions of dollars to animal experimenters who have no 
incentive to innovate and actually solve problems because that 
is what keeps the grants coming. They will figure out another 
way to do it, and we are going to get solutions that way.
    The EPA is a great example. I know my time is up, but the 
EPA set a timeline in 2019. The Trump Administration said, by 
2035, we are going to phaseout all animal testing, which was 
great. It was lauded by Republicans, Democrats. Everyone across 
the spectrum thought it was a great idea. Within months of 
that, within months of the Biden Administration taking over, 
they killed that timeline to phaseout animal testing at the EPA 
because environmental groups pushed them to do it, saying that 
it was an environmental justice issue, that we needed to do 
more animal testing, not less, which is ridiculous. So, I think 
that if you take the politics out, and if we are concerned with 
science and we are concerned about being good stewards of 
taxpayer dollars and the public's interest, we can end animal 
testing tomorrow. We are going to be fine, and we are actually 
going to be better off. Thank you.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I would now like to recognize Mr. 
Crane for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Crane. Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman, for holding this 
hearing today. Thank you guys for showing up. It was just 
yesterday in an Oversight hearing that I asked Chairman Comer 
if we could get some therapy dogs up here because of some of 
the meltdowns that were going on. I had no idea I would walk 
into this hearing today and see three beautiful Beagle puppies. 
And I have noticed that my mood has already improved, so thank 
you guys for bringing them there. I think we should make it 
mandatory.
    We also talked about, in the Oversight Committee hearing 
yesterday, some of the ridiculous initiatives and programs that 
need to be cut from our bloated government. And it seems like a 
lot of these studies are just another example of our senseless, 
out-of-control spending by bureaucrats who never really get 
held accountable. I want to start with you, Mr. Goodman. You 
said you have estimated over $20 billion in taxpayer money 
wasted on ineffective animal research. Is that correct, sir?
    Mr. Goodman. Yes.
    Mr. Crane. Wow. Mr. Goodman, did you also say that it was 
your estimation that $241 million was spent for transgender 
animal testing?
    Mr. Goodman. Yes, and that, I would say, is the floor, not 
the ceiling, because the information on Federal data bases is 
pretty incomplete.
    Mr. Crane. So, you think we are going to find out that it 
was much more money than that for----
    Mr. Goodman. Yes.
    Mr. Crane [continuing]. Transgender animal testing?
    Mr. Goodman. Yes.
    Mr. Crane. Can you describe what exactly the American 
people's taxpayer dollars were spent on regarding transgender 
animal testing?
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. In a lot of these cases, they involve 
mice, rats, monkeys who are being surgically mutilated and 
subjected to hormone therapies to mimic female-to-male or male-
to-female gender transitions, gender-affirming hormone 
therapies, and then looking at the biological, psychological, 
and physiological effects of the gender transitions, looking at 
the effects of taking vaccines after you have transitioned 
these animals from male to female or female to male, looking at 
the size of their genitals changing after you have put them on 
estrogen or testosterone therapies to transition them. In the 
example the Chairwoman gave, there was a $1.1 million grant to 
give female lab rats testosterone to mimic transgender male 
humans and then overdose them with this party drug to see if 
female animals taking testosterone were more likely to overdose 
on this sex-party drug than animals who were not taking 
testosterone.
    Mr. Crane. Mr. Goodman, are many of these taxpayer-funded 
animal studies shared with the public, or is there a 
significant oversight of this research?
    Mr. Goodman. You essentially needed a degree in information 
technology to navigate the Federal spending data bases to find 
any of this stuff.
    Mr. Crane. So, what you have found is we are not being very 
transparent with what we are spending these funds on?
    Mr. Goodman. Not at all, and it is by design.
    Mr. Crane. Did you say that Dr. Fauci, in your estimation, 
had funded close to 95 percent of these animal research 
projects?
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. In our analysis, Dr. Fauci funded about 
95 percent of the transgender animal experiments.
    Mr. Crane. OK. I found in some research that the EPA, under 
President Trump, is planning to reduce the Agency's animal 
testing by 30 percent by 2025 and completely by 2035. Mr. 
Goodman, can you explain why that is a win for the American 
taxpayer?
    Mr. Goodman. Absolutely. Animal testing is incredibly time-
intensive, inaccurate, and expensive, and it is not very good 
at predicting the human health effects or environmental effects 
of chemicals and pesticides. And right now, what we are doing 
to test human effects is poisoning the lab animals, forcing 
them to breathe wildfire smoke simulated in a laboratory by 
burning different types of foliage and pumping it into animals' 
cages, making them obese to simulate what it would be like for 
obese people to be exposed to wildfire smoke, shooting off 
handguns and rifles and forcing animals to breathe the 
emissions in gun control experiments, and the list goes on and 
on. And that is what is happening currently at the EPA after 
the Biden Administration overturned the Trump plan to phaseout 
animal testing.
    Mr. Crane. Mr. Goodman, one more question. You have also 
been outspoken about the COVID-19 outbreak stemming from Dr. 
Fauci's U.S.-funded research at China's Wuhan lab. What are the 
public health risks if we continue some of these outrageous 
animal studies?
    Mr. Goodman. We are flirting with disaster if we continue 
to fund dangerous virus research, both abroad, like in 
Colorado, where Fauci greenlit this bat lab. They are trying to 
import hundreds of bats from Asia to build a new lab in 
Colorado to do virus experiments with Ebola, Nipah, Lassa, 
deadly viruses for which there is no cure. It is just a matter 
of time before we have another pandemic on our hands if we let 
mad scientists run amok with our money.
    Mr. Crane. Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. Mace. All right. I will now yield 5 minutes to Mr. 
Burlison.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for this 
hearing. I have to admit, whenever I saw the subject line of 
this, I was surprised that this was a thing. I am shocked. I 
think the American people should be even more shocked and 
disgusted to find out what is happening with their dollars. I 
think it is actually embarrassing. People from other countries 
look at this country as a beacon and as an example, and here we 
are spending money, taxpayer dollars, to try to study 
transgender animals, like transing animals and testing them on 
party drugs? I mean, it is insane.
    My question to you, Mr. Goodman, is, I understand that your 
organization, White Coat Waste, helped expose the taxpayer-
funded experiments on bats that led to the COVID pandemic. How 
did you come about that? What was your investigation? How did 
you get the information?
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. Thanks for the question. Again, it is an 
honor to be here. In 2018, we uncovered a lab at the USDA here, 
right outside of the Beltway, where they were breeding hundreds 
of kittens every year and then flying to China and other 
foreign countries to these disgusting wet markets, and buying 
dog and cat meat--Federal employees. They were then putting it 
in their carry-on luggage, flying it back to the United States, 
and then force-feeding dog and cat meat to kittens in this 
government laboratory in Maryland. They had spent $22 million 
on this project.
    Mr. Burlison. For what purpose?
    Mr. Goodman. They wanted to know if people eating dog and 
cat meat in China might be exposed to a particular parasite 
that could be carried in dog and cat meat.
    Mr. Burlison. Wow. That was your first----
    Mr. Goodman. So, that was when we first got a sense that 
taxpayer dollars----
    Mr. Burlison. That was the first clue----
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. So----
    Mr. Burlison [continuing]. And then you continued to follow 
that.
    Mr. Goodman. And fortunately, the Trump Administration shut 
that project down. They adopted out the cats who were left in 
the lab. Two of them went to live with my boss, the president 
and founder of White Coat Waste Project. Delilah and Petite 
lived happily ever after with him, but that set us on the scent 
of foreign aid for animal research. In late 2019, we discovered 
a list on the NIH website of all the labs in China receiving 
taxpayer dollars, and in January 2020, we went----
    Mr. Burlison. There are, like, still 26?
    Mr. Goodman. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison. Or how many were there at that time?
    Mr. Goodman. There were more than 30 at the time, and there 
were actually labs in Russia receiving taxpayer money at the 
time. In January 2020, we met with the White House to flag for 
them that these labs in China, including the Wuhan lab, were 
receiving taxpayer funding, and then in April 2020, we finally 
went public. Working with Congressman Matt Gaetz and Joni 
Ernst, we went public, exposing the grant that Fauci sent to 
the Wuhan lab through EcoHealth Alliance to fund the gain-of-
function experiments. And then since then, we have been working 
to defund EcoHealth, defund the Wuhan lab, and cut funding for 
all animal laboratories in adversarial nations as a matter of 
animal welfare, government waste, and national security.
    Mr. Burlison. What kind of sick and twisted individual 
comes up with a plan to have an experiment where you are going 
to turn these animals into cannibals and see what the outcome 
is? Where does that come from? Like, what was the thought 
process? How did the Ph.D. student who was doing the research 
or whatever, how did they make that pitch to get that grant?
    Mr. Goodman. If it tells you anything about the 
government's thinking, the person responsible for this 
experiment is in the USDA's Hall of Fame.
    Mr. Burlison. Do you have the name?
    Mr. Goodman. Dr. Dubey.
    Mr. Burlison. Dr. Dubey. Wow. Let me ask this question, I 
just have a little bit more time left. Given the fact that we 
have got quantum computing, we now have AI, if they truly are 
trying to do research and determine something, could they not 
run a lot of this research through advanced technology using 
quantum computers, data centers?
    Mr. Goodman. Absolutely, and there are studies that have 
come out of Johns Hopkins and elsewhere showing that things 
like screening drugs and chemicals for human safety are 
actually much more accurate and efficient using computer 
modeling and AI than testing on lab animals.
    Mr. Burlison. On a completely different species, right?
    Mr. Goodman. Correct.
    Mr. Burlison. With completely different DNA. It would make 
sense. Thank you. I appreciate what you do. Thank you for 
exposing all of this. It is shameful that we are still sending 
money to these, but I will do everything we can to try to stop 
this.
    Mr. Goodman. Thank you so much.
    Ms. Mace. All right. Thank you, Mr. Burlison. With 
agreement from the Ranking Member, the Chair and Ranking Member 
will each get an additional 5 minutes to ask questions, so I am 
going to yield to the Ranking Member first.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, I want to 
circle back to you, Ms. Baker, with regards to potential 
legislative solutions that Congress can do to support and 
increase oversight of animal experimentation.
    Ms. Baker. Yes. Thank you for this question. You know, one 
of the things that was mentioned is the numbers of animals. It 
is unbelievable that in 2025, in the United States, we still do 
not know how many animals are used in research. The estimate is 
up to 100 million, but we need to know that number, and one of 
the reasons we do not know that number is that a lot of the 
animals that are used in research are not even recognized as 
animals under the law. Mice, rats, birds bred for research, 
invertebrates, they are not animals under the law, and so they 
are not counted. We can amend the Animal Welfare Act to count 
those animals by including them in the definition of 
``animals.'' If there is no appetite for amending the Animal 
Welfare Act, there are other solutions, and especially focused 
on Federal Government spending.
    So, the NIH does require recipients of NIH funding to do 
some reporting, but it is not transparent, and it is not 
accurate. If you receive NIH grants, every 4 years you need to 
provide some assurances that you are complying with NIH 
policies, and in that is an average daily inventory of animals. 
It is just an estimate. It is not transparent. To get that 
information, you would have to do FOIA requests. And so, there 
is actually some proposed legislation--the Federal Animal 
Research Accountability Act--that could change this. Simply 
put, if you receive NIH grants, then once a year you need to 
report on how many animals have been housed, bred, used in 
research, and that should be made transparent.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you for that. I appreciate you giving your 
testimony today. Mr. Goodman, I do have a question. We keep 
hearing about the gender-affirming care, and I do find that 
concerning. Just for clarification purposes, can you let me 
know, what is that dollar figure and where is the source from?
    Mr. Goodman. For those experiments?
    Ms. Brown. Yes.
    Mr. Goodman. The source of that is NIH RePORTER website and 
the USAspending.gov website.
    Ms. Brown. OK. And what was the dollar figure?
    Mr. Goodman. Let me get it for you, and I have a 
spreadsheet with all those projects.
    Ms. Brown. OK.
    Mr. Goodman. I would be happy to share it. The dollar 
figure was $240 million in recent grants; $26 million of those 
are active grants.
    Ms. Brown. OK. And the----
    Mr. Goodman. And those----
    Ms. Brown [continuing]. Two-hundred-forty-one million is 
for?
    Mr. Goodman. So, that is grants that are available in the 
NIH RePORTER data base, and again, I have this actual search 
saved. If you use search terms ``transgender'' and ``animal 
models,'' those were the hits that came up.
    Ms. Brown. OK, because I think the article that you cited 
in your statement indicated there was $10 million.
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. That was----
    Ms. Brown. I was just trying to get clarity.
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. That was just a sub-selection of the 
projects. It was not everything.
    Ms. Brown. OK.
    Mr. Goodman. Yes.
    Ms. Brown. All right. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Goodman. You are welcome.
    Ms. Brown. All right, and I will yield back.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, and I am going to yield to myself for 
5 minutes, and, Congresswoman Boebert, I am going to yield to 
you for a minute or two. I think you had a couple extra 
questions you want to ask. My first question, Mr. Goodman, what 
is the worst animal testing experiment you have ever heard of 
and uncovered? There are some really bad ones out there, but 
what is the absolute worst one you have ever heard of and 
uncovered?
    Mr. Goodman. The kitten cannibalism was pretty horrendous: 
breeding kittens just to force them to eat cat meat, and then 
killing them, even though they were perfectly healthy, after 
they collected their feces out of a litter box. I mean, that is 
literally what was happening. They were doing that to thousands 
and thousands of kittens. The DOJ, until recently, was 
stabbing, shooting, and blowing up live animals for training 
exercises. We were able to cut that and defund that. The 
experiments that the NIH funded and Fauci funded in Tunisia, 
where they were putting the dogs' heads in mesh cages and 
filling them with biting flies. Yes, there is a lot of 
nightmarish stuff that we are being forced to fund, and 
taxpayers do not like it, and they do not even know how bad the 
situation is. If they did, they would be marching in the 
streets.
    Ms. Mace. Yes, and Dr. Locke, a question for you. What are 
the prospects of a drug therapy that fails animal testing? Is 
it likely to receive regulatory approval?
    Dr. Locke. Thank you for your question. I am not an expert 
on the drug development process, but the way you have described 
things, I think if the drug would not make it through the tests 
that are required, it would not be able to be in the market. If 
I could just add, though, that Congress has really looked 
closely at this issue about developing drugs and passed a law, 
the FDA Modernization Act----
    Ms. Mace. Uh-huh.
    Dr. Locke [continuing]. That removed the requirements for 
testing drugs. And my understanding is that there is bipartisan 
support for another law, because Congress feels that the FDA is 
not moving more quickly in this area. That is the FDA 
Modernization Act 3.0 that would force the Agency to really pay 
a lot more attention to using alternatives.
    Ms. Mace. OK. And then, Ms. Baker, before I hand it over to 
Ms. Boebert, I love your idea of revisiting the Animal Welfare 
Act. I would be open to working with you in finding that 
language and doing a bill that would insert that language, to 
define what an animal is. I think that is very important. I am 
all about small parts, big difference. Of course, I would like 
to eradicate animal testing altogether, but that seems like an 
easy win that we could work on together in a nonpartisan 
manner. So, I would love to talk to you about that, and I will 
yield the last 2-and-a-half minutes to Ms. Boebert.
    Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the NIH 
probably should change their acronym to FOD--Faces of Death. 
This very much sounds like a show that my mother would not let 
me watch as a child and just hearing how egregious this is. 
There are many more things that I have listed here. Of course, 
we have heard of the beagles who were in the mesh cages. I do 
not know if their vocal cords were paralyzed or if they were 
removed, but they were prevented from barking, correct?
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. There was a project that Dr. Fauci 
funded, actually we worked with Chairwoman Mace to expose, that 
they were doing drug testing where they were poisoning puppies 
with massive doses of drugs. There was actually a line item in 
the contract for a cordectomy----
    Ms. Boebert. Wow.
    Mr. Goodman [continuing]. To cut the vocal cords so the 
dogs would not bark in the lab.
    Ms. Boebert. Wow. And so, we have heard that. We have heard 
electroshock therapy, even to the point where cats had their 
spinal cords exposed, their backs sliced open, and that 
electroshock therapy was given to test for erectile dysfunction 
and cognitive issues, and so many other things. And so, I ended 
my last round of questioning talking about the implantation of 
aborted fetal tissues, and you said that universities partner 
with clinics who are performing these abortions. Now, how does 
that process work and who funds that? Are the mothers of these 
aborted babies giving permission? Do they know it is taking 
place? Is there taxpayer funding in the crosshairs of that, 
other than the actual testing itself?
    Mr. Goodman. That is outside of my wheelhouse.
    Ms. Boebert. OK. Again, Madam Chair, I think this is 
something we should look into. I would love to see just what 
permissions are granted and given for that. I know that we have 
some regulatory framework within the Department of Health and 
Human Services and the Public Health Service Act, and 
regulations include prohibitions on buying or selling the 
tissue of valuable consideration, but they allow for 
compensation for costs associated with the tissue handling. And 
so, I would love to look into that, so not only can we prevent 
the cruelty in the animals like these beautiful beagles we see 
here today, but also even our children who are being harmed in 
this process as well, for whatever reason it may be. But, Madam 
Chair, I would love to continue to work with you on this and 
hold Dr. Fauci, the NIH, NIAID, and everyone else accountable 
for this wasteful spending, and I yield.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I would now like to yield 5 minutes to 
Mr. McGuire.
    Mr. McGuire. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thanks for 
bringing this egregious and evil issue to our attention. It is 
not working? All right. The new guy is learning. All right. 
Thank you, Chairwoman for bringing----
    Ms. Mace. You are doing great.
    Mr. McGuire. Thank you for bringing this egregious and evil 
issue to my attention. I do not think anyone in my district or 
our country would approve. I want to thank you for our 
witnesses for coming in. As a veteran, as a Navy Seal, we use 
dogs, and they save many lives. We call them furry missiles. 
And my wife and I have a Great Pyrenees, and our dog is part of 
the family, and I was not aware of what you have brought to our 
attention. And after listening to what the Chairwoman talked 
about, this being a bipartisan issue, it should be. It is 
definitely evidence that evil does exist. We spend more in our 
country per day than we bring in per day, which is going to 
sink this country if we do not get it under control. I cannot 
believe the amount of money that we are spending to do these 
crazy things.
    I want to start with Dr. Locke. Approximately how many 
drugs on the market today rely on safety and efficacy data from 
multiple animal models before being allowed to move to human 
clinical trials?
    Dr. Locke. Thank you for your question. I do not have a 
good figure for you other than to say that, as you correctly 
stated, the law requires safety and efficacy. And before the 
FDA Modernization Act was passed and probably even after it was 
passed, most of those drugs almost certainly had to go through 
some sort of animal testing, but I cannot put a number on it. I 
am sorry.
    Mr. McGuire. No worries. I strongly advocate for the 
welfare of animals. Dr. Locke, would you agree that eliminating 
animal testing entirely from the research and development of 
drugs and vaccines could significantly hinder our ability to 
assess safety and efficacy, potentially delaying lifesaving 
treatments?
    Dr. Locke. At the present time, we would need to transition 
away from animals. Yes, I do agree with that statement.
    Mr. McGuire. That is what I think. All right. Dr. Locke, 
given your knowledge in alternative testing models, can you 
briefly list and describe different examples of technological 
alternatives?
    Dr. Locke. Yes. Thank you for your question. One of the 
ones I mentioned in my testimony are these things called organs 
on a chip, which are just like what they sound like. They are 
small, engineered devices, and they mimic the organs that we 
have in our body. So, there is a lung on a chip, there is a 
heart on a chip, there is a liver on a chip, and those do not 
have the same functions that our organs do, but they have 
enough so that you can make good decisions based on the biology 
that you learn from those. In many cases, you can actually put 
human cells in there. You are putting human cells in there to 
study chemicals, and you can also begin to link these together 
to get a whole body on a chip.
    Another area where we have had a lot of advances in 
developing these things is called organoids. So, organoids are 
groups of cells from, let us say, a brain or a liver or a 
heart, and you put them in a dish, and they actually organize 
themselves into something that looks like a human organ, but it 
is not exactly the same. But again, it has enough function so 
you can study it, and you can expose it to chemicals, and you 
can expose it to other things so that you might know what is 
going to impact it. The important thing to remember about 
these, too, is that, in terms of cost effectiveness, you can 
put these in a well plate, and you can do many, many studies at 
the same time. Unlike with animals, where you have a very, very 
slow throughput, these, you have either a medium or a high 
throughput. So, those are two examples that I am most familiar 
with.
    Our other witnesses have mentioned AI computational models. 
That is another very, very powerful one, but we have all these 
unbelievable techniques now where we can actually use these for 
personalized medicine. So, I think everyone here has a medical 
school in their district or a university in their district that 
does this. But for example, if I was suffering from a disease 
and there were two options for treatment for that disease, and 
one was, let us say, a chemical and the other was a radiation 
treatment, you could actually take cells from my body and you 
could regress those cells to stem cells, then make them organ 
cells----
    Mr. McGuire. I apologize. I am running out of time----
    Dr. Locke. Oh, I am sorry.
    Mr. McGuire [continuing]. And I have another question.
    Dr. Locke. OK.
    Mr. McGuire. I wish I had a list of the egregious things 
that my colleague Lauren Boebert listed--I could not believe 
half of them, or any of them--but I heard them mention kitten 
cannibalism, which is unbelievable. Is that true, and if so, 
where did it happen? When did it happen? What did they think 
they were going to achieve?
    Dr. Locke. I do not have any information on that question. 
I am sorry.
    Mr. McGuire. Does any of the witnesses have----
    Mr. Goodman. Yes. My organization exposed that in 2018. The 
USDA's Agricultural Research Service, ARS, in Beltsville, had a 
lab where they were breeding hundreds of kittens every year and 
doing feeding experiments with them, including going to wet 
markets in China and Brazil and other places, buying dog and 
cat meat, bringing it back to the United States, and force-
feeding that meat to kittens for studies looking at the 
prevalence of toxoplasmosis in dog and cat meat in wet markets 
abroad.
    Mr. McGuire. Proof that evil does exist. Thank you, 
Chairwoman, for bringing this to our attention, and hopefully 
we can stop this evil. Thank you.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. McGuire. I would now like to yield 
to Ranking Member Brown for any brief closing remarks she may 
have.
    Ms. Brown. I just want to thank the witnesses for being 
here, and I look forward to doing some good work on this 
Subcommittee.
    Ms. Mace. And I want to thank the Ranking Member, and I 
look forward to working with you. While we were just talking 
offline here, I was saying I want to get on her bill about 
cosmetics and animal testing, so all good things today. Today's 
conversation builds upon the work that I and many of us on 
Oversight and throughout Congress have been working on for 
years to end animal testing. There are many of us up here, and 
we are not working fast enough. We are trying as hard as we 
can, so we appreciate the witnesses being here today.
    Last Congress, I introduced the Preventing Animal Abuse and 
Waste Act to prohibit the NIH from conducting or funding 
research that causes significant pain or distress to cats or 
dogs. As an animal lover, I have been disturbed to learn about 
these barbaric and unnecessary experiments to create 
transgender mice, rats, and monkeys. I, like many, most humans, 
have a deep adoration and love for all of God's creatures, 
including our animals, and one of my earliest memories as a 
child was being in Hampton, South Carolina. I was, like, 4 
years old, and my grandmother had just made some great biscuits 
and breakfast, and she gave me this bright pink album, and it 
was just full of pictures of animals from the newspaper from 
Hampton, and ever since then, I have just loved them so much, 
and I grew up with seven pets. We had three dogs, three cats, 
and a parrot named Julio.
    And so, it is just important for the work that we are doing 
that all of God's creatures, all animals, are treated with 
respect and dignity and love, and that they are not murdered 
and maimed and killed on these horrific experiments. So, this 
Congress, I will continue to fight to end all animal testing, 
including by introducing legislation that prohibits use of 
Federal funds for these cruel animal sex-change experiments. 
Thank you, again, to our panelists. The issue of taxpayer-
funded animal cruelty deserves our time and attention. I am 
thankful for your expert testimony today.
    And with that, without objection, all Members will have 5 
legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit 
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will then 
be forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
    Ms. Mace. And we are now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:20 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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