The Department of Defense and National Institutes of Health (NIH) are still collaborating on research with a Beijing lab for “cruel” drug experiments on beagles, according to a federal watchdog and Republican lawmakers who have sought sanctions on the biotech entity involved, citing concerning links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Pharmaron, a Chinese biotech firm, is currently testing pharmaceuticals on up to 300 beagles per week to learn how to better treat neurological disorders, with the help of US taxpayer funding from the DOD and NIH, according to federal contracts exclusively shared with The Post by the White Coat Waste Project.
The NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences received initial funding “specifically” from the Pentagon, the contract shows, to funnel $124,200 in total for the drug experiments on beagle puppies — as well as mice and rats — at the Beijing-based company’s lab between Sept. 1, 2023, and May 31, 2025.
“Beagle dog is docile, cute and easy to domesticate,” states Pharmaron’s proposal on Aug. 17, 2023, noting that all research would comport with the Animal Welfare Act and the Public Health Service Policy on Laboratory Animal Care.
The document goes on to describe how the hundreds of pups, some as young as eight months, “will be reused” throughout the study “to save animals and decrease cost,” while laying out criteria for weak, infected or those suffering organ dysfunction to be “euthanized.”
The nonprofit government watchdog group filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain the contract as part of an investigation last year into more than two dozen Chinese labs that had received more than $2 million for animal testing and other experiments.
“No animal lab in China should get another red cent of taxpayers’ money,” said Justin Goodman, senior vice president at government watchdog White Coat Waste Project, in a statement.
“They ghoulishly chose to abuse beagles because they’re ‘docile’ and ‘cute’ — the same qualities that make them loving pets. In 2020, President Trump famously cut (Dr. Anthony) Fauci’s grant to the Wuhan lab days after we exposed it,” he said.
“We’re urging him to pick up where he left off and defund all of China’s animal labs once and for all. The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!” Goodman continued.
“It’s alarming that American tax dollars are still funding cruel dog testing and other animal labs in Communist China after our Select Subcommittee exposed dangerous experiments being conducted in places like the Wuhan Lab and cut that funding off,” Staten Island GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis told The Post.
“I’m urging President Trump to stop the NIH and other agencies from sending our money to foreign labs that threaten our national security, public health, and animal welfare,” added Malliotakis, who has called for up to $20 billion in “dead-end” animal research to be cut off.
The president is mulling an executive order to halt US-funded, gain-of-function research, according to the Wall Street Journal, but has yet to consider reforms to animal testing — a bipartisan issue in Congress.
The NIH is one of many agencies that has been ordered by the incoming Trump administration to pause its communications for the time being, prompting Democrats to accuse the president of halting critical grants and other work.
It’s unclear whether a pause imposed by the Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday applies to NIH’s grantmaking abilities.
Last June, the Pentagon audited all of its funding for overseas gain-of-function research, which can enhance the transmissibility and lethality of viruses, but was unable to uncover the “full extent” of grants and contracts “to Chinese research laboratories or other foreign countries” for the risky experiments.
The audit, conducted by the DOD’s Office of Inspector General, revealed at least $1.4 billion had nevertheless been sent abroad for 12,660 grants between 2014 and 2023.
But the inspector general’s report had redacted research collaborations between the Defense Department and Pharmaron, as well as the Chinese biotech firms WuXi AppTec and Genscript Inc., according to a copy previously reviewed by The Post.
All three had been cited as so-called “companies of concern” and blacklisted from doing business with US firms, as part of legislation that passed the House but was never taken up in the Senate.
Sen. Roger Marshall accused Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of potentially having “shielded” the Chinese companies from scrutiny by Congress — despite the trio being identified as “problematic” by lawmakers given their closeness to the Chinese Communist Party.
“Billions of dollars in grants go to China for suspect purposes,” Marshall (R-Kan.) told The Post Tuesday, adding that White Coat Waste’s FOIA files “demonstrate that Pharmaron is doing cruel testing.”
“I look forward to working with my colleagues and President Trump to end abuses such as this and return transparency to the federal grant process.”
Last February, a bipartisan group of lawmakers — including then-Senate Homeland Security Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and then-House Select China Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) — also urged Austin, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to investigate WuXi AppTec.
They claimed the firm was “closely affiliated” with China’s People’s Liberation Army — and may have stolen US intellectual property.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) led the charge to include the gain-of-function audit as a requirement in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and told The Post that she has “demanded transparency and worked tirelessly to uncover the truth and end the pseudoscience” ever “since discovering that Fauci was funding shady experiments in Wuhan.”
“Especially following the CIA’s determination that COVID came from a lab in Wuhan, we must clip the wings on the batty studies of pandemic potential,” Ernst (R-Iowa) said.
“Tax dollars should not be funding gain-of-function research or any dangerous, cruel, and wasteful studies anywhere, but especially in China, Russia, or other foreign adversaries.”
Reps for the Defense Department, NIH and Pharmaron did not respond to requests for comment.
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