Hawaii Legislator Co-Sponsors Bill to Ban NIH Funding of Cruel Foreign Animal Experiments

For Immediate Release:
December 21, 2023

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Honolulu, Hawaii – Local U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii-02) has signed on as a co-sponsor of the bipartisan H.R.4757, Cease Animal Research Grants Overseas (CARGO) Act, which would bar the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from funding animal tests in foreign laboratories. This follows PETA’s 18-month investigation into U.S.-funded animal experimenters in Colombia that led to the shutdown of two animal laboratories.

Between 2011 and 2021, NIH gave approximately $2.2 billion in taxpayer  money to 200 foreign organizations to fund 1,357 grants and contracts involving experiments on animals. The money went to 45 countries, including China, Colombia, and Russia. The CARGO Act would terminate such U.S. government giveaways, saving the lives of countless animals who would have otherwise been victimized in experiments.

NIH has funded foreign laboratories in which experimenters addict dogs to opioids and force them to go through withdrawal, cause strokes in monkeys, remove mice’s eyes, infect bats with coronaviruses—potentially setting the stage for the next pandemic—feed amphetamines and alcohol to mice, force-feed toxic substances to beagles, and more.

“We’ve got to walk the walk when it comes to our values and what we fund. We cannot continue to blindly put American tax dollars towards funding foreign research that inhumanely harm and kill animals,” says Tokuda. “We need to pass the CARGO Act.”

“PETA thanks Rep. Tokuda for her strong leadership,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “It’s not often you get a bill that protects animals, science, and U.S. taxpayers all at once. The CARGO Act does just that.”

The bipartisan bill was introduced by Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.-01) and Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas-22) and has so far been co-sponsored by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.-01), Brian Mast (R-Fla.-21), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.-01), Don Davis (D-N.C.-01), Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.-14), Zachary Nunn (R-Iowa-03), Dean Phillips (D-Minn.-03), Gregory Steube (R-Fla.-17), and Susan Wild (D-Pa.-07).

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.