‘I am cutting off the money for this madness,’ said Sen. Joni Ernst
L: Sen. Joni Ernst (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) R: The Wuhan Institute of Virology (Getty Images)
American taxpayers will no longer be forced to finance brutal animal experiments in Chinese labs if Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) gets her way.
Ernst on Tuesday introduced the Accountability in Foreign Animal Research Act, which would bar the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health from using taxpayer funds to finance animal research in labs controlled by the governments of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The bill comes as a growing number of intelligence agencies and scientific experts say the department’s funding of risky gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology likely played a direct role in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology and its U.S. partner, EcoHealth Alliance, have since been fully stripped of their taxpayer funding, but the NIH continues to dominate headlines for financing a slew of “cruel” experiments on beagles and other animals at home and overseas. The NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, under the leadership of former director Dr. Anthony Fauci, for example, used taxpayer funds to cut the vocal cords out of dogs so they couldn’t bark during drug tests and paid a Russian lab to conduct what Republicans called “horrific and barbaric experiments on 18 cats,” among others, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Those sorts of experiments have elicited fierce blowback from the public, but some 20 Chinese institutions continue to maintain certifications with the NIH to conduct taxpayer-funded animal experiments. Since 2025, the agency has come under fire for providing $124,200 in taxpayer funds to a Beijing lab to conduct drug experiments on beagle puppies, mice, and rats. The agency also canceled a $135,000 grant to China Medical University to infect rabbits with malaria.
If signed into law, Ernst’s bill would cut all those Chinese institutions off the public dole in one swoop.
“We should have learned our lesson after COVID-19,” Ernst told the Washington Free Beacon. “Whether creating zombie cats in Russia or supporting risky research in Wuhan, funding sketchy experiments on animals in foreign labs, I am cutting off the money for this madness and ensuring that taxpayers no longer foot the bill for crazy pseudoscience overseas.”
House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Lisa McClain (R., Mich.) introduced an identical version of the bill in the House earlier in April.
“American taxpayer dollars should never fund dangerous, cruel experiments in animal research labs–much less in China or other adversarial countries. This common-sense legislation ensures taxpayer dollars are not wasted on reckless research,” McClain told the Free Beacon.
Justin Goodman, senior vice president for advocacy and public policy at the White Coat Waste Project, praised the Republican lawmakers for moving to end the public financing of animal experimentation in adversarial nations.
“Despite our progress since 2020 and in the first few months of the new Trump Administration, 20 Chinese animal labs are still eligible to receive taxpayers’ money, including one that’s currently abusing 300 beagles a week in wasteful and cruel NIH-funded drug tests,” Goodman told the Free Beacon. “Cutting cash for foreign enemies’ animal labs is common sense, consistent with Trump directives, and backed by over 70 percent of taxpayers.”
