According to a scathing new report in USA Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs has continued some of its incredibly inhumane and unnecessary taxpayer-funded lab experiments on puppies and other dogs despite action from President Trump and Congress.
The right-leaning taxpayer watchdog group White Coat Waste Project—which has lead the grassroots campaign to end VA’s dog testing—obtained documents showing that while some existing testing has been canceled and no new VA dog testing has been initiated since July 2017, several projects have been allowed to continue under highly dubious conditions.
In the USA Today article, former VA Secretary David Shulkin claims that he didn’t approve the existing tests to continue, even though President Trump signed legislation earlier this yearrestricting VA dog tests and mandating that each and every dog experiment be personally approved by the VA Secretary. Apparently, nine questionable projects were allowed to continue without the legally-required approval from the Secretary.
The taxpayer-funded tests that were “approved” include drilling into puppies’ skulls, severing their spinal cords, and forcing them to run on treadmills after giving them heart attacks.
Anthony Bellotti, president of White Coat Waste Project, told Gateway Pundit, “Over the past 18 months, there’s been historic progress toward ending VA’s fiscally reckless and morally repugnant dog testing, and there would’ve been more if not for a few entrenched bureaucrats at the VA. Legislation twice signed by President Trump clearly intended to finally get the VA’s wasteful and cruel dog experimentation off the taxpayer’s back, but the VA appears to be undermining him, Congress and veterans across the country. POTUS opposes socialized medicine, so why would he support socialized dog abuse in VA labs?”
In addition to national veterans groups like AMVETS supporting the campaign to stop VA’s dog abuse, figures including POTUS daughter-in-law Lara Trump, legendary political strategist Roger Stone, and combat-wounded U.S. Marine Corps veteran Johnny “Joey” Jones have spoken out in favor of the effort.
