A shocking new investigation by White Coat Waste (WCW) has uncovered how Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) quietly shifted controversial kitten experimentation from a shuttered U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) lab into the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) own internal laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland, after President Donald Trump’s administration shut down the USDA’s infamous “kitten slaughterhouse” exposed by the watchdog organization in 2019.
The newly obtained records, obtained by WCW through Freedom of Information Act requests, show that in 2021, under Dr. Fauci, NIAID scientist Dr. Michael Grigg, a collaborator with the now-closed USDA lab, resurrected the kitten experimentation protocols inside NIH intramural laboratories, where they remain active through at least December 13, 2026.
For decades, the USDA’s Beltsville, Maryland, facility bred and killed cats for toxoplasmosis parasite experiments led by scientist Jitender Dubey.
WCW uncovered how Dubey’s lab bred thousands of kittens for painful and deadly taxpayer-funded testing.
Dubey and his staff traveled to China and other foreign countries to visit wet markets and purchase cat and dog meat, which would then be fed to kittens back at the USDA lab in gruesome cannibalism experiments.
WCW detailed the disturbing project in an exchange with Republican Rep. Eric Burlison during a House Oversight hearing last year and highlighted how Dubey was even inducted into the USDA Hall of Fame.
WATCH:
Today I discovered that the USDA has enshrined vile individuals like ‘Dr. Dubey’ in their Hall of Fame for the grotesque practice of purchasing dog and cat meat from China to feed to lab dogs and cats in the U.S.
Taxpayer money. Funding kitty cannibalism. pic.twitter.com/J1ZjksP0Zq
— Rep. Eric Burlison (@RepEricBurlison) February 6, 2025
The Trump administration eventually terminated the program and adopted out the remaining 28 cats after WCW exposed the gruesome taxpayer-funded testing and rallied support from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, along with Trump allies like Roger Stone.
Two of the surviving breeder cats, Delilah and Petite, were adopted by WCW President and Founder Anthony Bellotti.
But according to the newly uncovered NIH records, Fauci’s NIAID simply relocated the work behind closed doors, and it’s still going on today.
Protocols approved from 2021 through 2026 authorize experiments using up to 30 cats in toxoplasmosis vaccine studies. The records describe feeding cats infected mouse tissue “slurry,” isolating the animals in cages after inoculation, and harvesting parasites from cat feces.
One protocol warns that “cats can develop pneumonia … and these cats can die acutely without prior clinical signs before intervention is feasible.”
The records also reveal efforts to conceal the animals’ laboratory history after the studies ended.
“At the end of the study, the microchip will be permanently reprogrammed to the person who adopts the cat … ensuring no record that the cat was part of an Animal Study Protocol,” one document states.
Purchase records obtained by WCW show NIH acquired six three-month-old female kittens in April 2022 and four more five-month-old female kittens in October 2024 from lab supplier Liberty Research, a company similar to the controversial Ridglan Farms beagle breeding operation that supplies animals for testing.
Records show longtime USDA kitten experimenter Dubey remained a collaborator on the NIH project as recently as 2024-2025.
Also listed as a collaborator is University of California-Davis researcher Jeroen Saeij, whose Fauci-funded kitten experiments were canceled in 2024 after WCW exposed the project. Bellotti also adopted one of those cats, Marigold, who had been locked in the lab for 12 years.
WCW says the documents prove Fauci undermined the Trump USDA and Congress and helped ensure the discredited kitten experiments continued with taxpayer funding.
“There’s 40,000 other beagles still locked in labs across this country, including thousands of beagles from Ridglan who are in Fauci-funded laboratories that have been re-funded, re-newed, and have yet to be shut down.”
Senior Vice President of White Coat Waste @JustinRGoodman… pic.twitter.com/DXjvenRSnK
— One America News (@OANN) May 8, 2026
The discovery that these Fauci-approved kitten experiments are still active within the NIH also casts further doubt on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s and other agency officials’ claims that they stopped funding cat and dog labs.
Gateway Pundit has reported on evidence that the NIH continues to award new grants and extend funding for testing on pets, and makes misleading statements about it.
WCW has been escalating its campaign urging Kennedy to stop funding cat and dog testing, including with a national “WTF RFK?” advertising blitz.
🚨EXCLUSIVE:
“WTF RFK” Ads Launch Nationwide To Protest Taxpayer Funded Animal Testing Overseen By HHS
For Tax Week, @WhiteCoatWaste just launched a national ad campaign calling out HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. @RobertKennedyJr for overseeing the spending of millions… pic.twitter.com/3hC6oYgqt2
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) April 13, 2026
WCW’s Bellotti blasted the findings as proof that the federal animal testing bureaucracy simply relocated politically toxic experiments instead of ending them.
“Just like Fauci outsourced dangerous gain-of-function animal experiments to Wuhan to dodge scrutiny—as White Coat Waste first exposed—we've now uncovered that he quietly insourced these highly controversial kitten experiments into NIH’s own labs after WCW’s campaign prompted the Trump administration to shut down the USDA’s kitten slaughterhouse.”
As Gateway Pundit recently reported, Republican Rep. Nick Langworthy has joined WCW in pushing Kennedy and NIH to defund dog and cat labs in the wake of the Ridglan beagle farm scandal.
2,000 beagles survived hell at Ridglan Farms.
Eyes removed, vocal cords cut, unimaginable cruelty. They were rescued and 8 of them were brought to WNY to find their forever homes.
I will fight to END taxpayer-funded animal testing on dogs and cats. See the saved dogs here ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/KaXnTAPPff
— Congressman Nick Langworthy (@RepLangworthy) May 10, 2026
WCW is also working with Congress to pass the Preventing Animal Abuse and Waste (PAAW) Act to defund NIH dog and cat experiments, as well as related measures in Fiscal Year 2027 appropriations bills.
I will continue to call out the NIH for not cutting Fauci’s animal labs. https://t.co/cnESYrQsiO
— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) May 6, 2026
Republican Rep. Paul Gosar has proposed eliminating funding in the NIH’s 2027 appropriations bill for all active NIAID projects approved under Dr. Fauci, which would include the NIH’s in-house kitten experiments.
Bellotti, who started WCW in 2011 after a short stint working in an animal testing lab, told The Gateway Pundit, “Unfortunately, under RFK Jr. and Fauci fanatic Nicole Kleinstreuer—NIH's so-called animal testing czar—Fauci's kitten lab is alive and well inside NIH, and they’ve doled out over $142 million in new funding for other cat and dog labs, too. Defunding these wasteful pet abuse programs—and retiring the survivors like the cats I adopted from NIH and USDA labs that White Coat Waste has shut down—is a surefire way to hold Fauci accountable. Stop the money. Stop the madness.”
