The National Institutes of Health is being accused of spending more than a million dollars in taxpayer money over the past decade to purchase dogs for "cruel and useless" experiments.
The organization is wrapped up in a federal investigation of a large beagle-breeding facility in Virginia, Envigo, that has been cited for dozens of animal welfare violations.
Daphna Nachminovitch, senior vice president of cruelty investigations for PETA, said the NIH has been spending taxpayer money with Envigo for years.
"They have contracts worth more than $1.2 million over the last 10 years or so, buying beagles from this facility that's located in central Virginia and warehouses 5,000 dogs and puppies in hideous conditions. So hideous in fact that they have been cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for direct and critical violations," Nachminovitch told Fox News' Tucker Carlson.
Those violations include "failure to provide basic necessities of life to these nursing mother dogs and their puppies, keeping animals in temperatures as high as 92 degrees without air conditioning, plunging needles into the heads of puppies to drain hematomas, depriving nursing mother dogs, who were famished, of food for up to two days, and so much more," Nachminovitch added.
During an undercover investigation at Envigo's breeding facility, which led to the USDA investigation, PETA encountered more than 350 puppies dead among their live littermates and mothers. Other dogs were confined to small, barren kennels and cages in sheds that stretched as long as a football field.
"These dogs are being raised for cruel experiments that are useless," Nachminovitch said.
The experiments are also very, very expensive.
"The NIH spends about $19.6 billion a year on animal experiments," Nachminovitch said. "And it's not just our federal government and our tax dollars, but contract laboratories and universities that are fueling this industry, torturing these animals with a variety of cruel experiments."
What's most disturbing about the whole situation, Nachminovitch added, is the reasoning behind using beagles specifically in these experiments.
"Beagles are small and docile," she said. "They're such gentle, loyal dogs, and unfortunately they are so submissive that they're easy to torture without posing a public safety risk to their abusers."
The federal investigation is ongoing.
For its part, Envigo said the use of animals for research is "essential for developing lifesaving medicines, medical devices and biologics, such as vaccines." A spokesperson told the Washington Post that "the highest quality of animal welfare is a core value of our company." He added that Envigo is working with the USDA to correct all issues at its facility.
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